GIFT OF 
CLASS OF 190Q 




SHADOWS OF SHASTA, 



BY 

JOAQUIN MILLER, 

AUTHOR OF "SONGS OP THE SIERRAS," "THE DANITES IN 
THE SIERRAS," ETC. 



CHICAGO: 
JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 

1881. 



o 
o 



COPYRIGHT. 

JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 
A. D. 1881. 



AH right* of Dramatization reserved to the Author. 



pDa3?7 



TO 

WH.ITE LA.W REID. 



260323 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY 7 

MOUNT SHASTA IT 

TWENTY CARATS FINE 49 

MAN-HUNTERS . 81 

THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER .... 108 

THE CAPTURE * 122 

THE ESCAPE . 150 



- 



SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

With vast foundations seamed and knit, 
And wrought and bound by golden bars, 

Sierra s peaks serenely sit 
And challenge heaven s sentry-stars. 

WHY this book? Because last year, in the 
heart of the Sierras, I saw women and chil 
dren chained together and marched down from 
their cool, healthy homes to degradation and 
death on the Keservation. At the side of this 
long, chained line, urged on and kept in or 
der by bayonets, rode a young officer, splen 
did in gold and brass, and newly burnished, 
from that now famous charity-school on the 
Hudson. These women and children were 
guilty of no crime; they were not even ac 
cused of wrong. But their fathers and 
brothers lay dead in battle-harness, on the 



8 611 A DO WS OF SHASTA. 

mountain heights and in the lava beds; and 
these few silent survivors, like Israel of old, 
were being led into captivity but, unlike the 
chosen children, never to return to the beloved 
heart of their mountains. 

Do you doubt these statements about the 
treatment of the Indians? Then read this, 
from the man the fiend in the form of man 
who for years, and until recently, had charge 
of all the Indians in the United States : 

" From reports and testimony before me, I 
find that Indians removed to the Reservation 
or Indian Territory, die off so rapidly that the 
race must soon become extinct if they are so 
removed. In this connection, I recommend 
the early removal of all the Indians to the In 
dian Territory" 

The above coarse attempt at second-hand wit 
is quoted from memory. But if the exact 
words are not given, the substance is there ; 
and, indeed, the idea and expression is not at 
all new. 

I know if you contemplate the Indian from 
the railroad platform, as you cross the plains, 
you will almost conclude, from the dreadful 
specimens there seen, that the Indian Commis- 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

sioner was not so widely out of the way in that 
brutal desire. But the real Indian is not there. 
The Special Correspondent will not find him, 
though he travel ten thousand miles. He is 
in the mountains, a free man yet ; not a beg 
gar, not a thief, but the brightest, bravest, tru 
est man alive. Every few years, the soldiers 
find him ; and they do not despise him when 
found. Think of Captain Jack, with his sixty 
braves, holding the whole army at bay for half 
a year ! Think of Chief Joseph, to whose 
valor and virtues the brave and brilliant sol 
diers sent to fight him bear immortal testimo 
ny. Seamed with scars of battle, and bloody 
from the fight of the deadly day and the night 
preceding ; his wife dying from a bullet ; his 
boy lying dead at his feet ; his command deci 
mated ; bullets flying thick as hail ; this In 
dian walked right into the camp of his enemy, 
gun in hand, and then not like a beaten man, 
not like a captive, but like a king demanded 
to know the terms upon which his few remain 
ing people could be allowed to live. When a 
brave man beats a brave man in battle, he likes 
to treat him well as witness Grant and Lee; 
and so Generals Howard and Miles made fair 



10 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

terms with the conquered chief. The action 
of the Government which followed makes one 
sick at heart. Let us in charity call it imbe 
cility. But before whose door shall we lay the 
dead? Months after the surrender, this brave 
but now heart-broken chief, cried out : 

"Give my people water, or they will die. 
This is mud and slime that we have to drink 
here on this Reservation. More than half are 
dead already. Give us the water of our moun 
tains. And will you not give us back just one 
mountain too? There are not many of us left 
now. We will not want much now. Give 
us back just one mountain, so that these women 
and children may live. Take all the valleys. 
But you cannot plow the mountains. Give us 
back just one little mountain, with cool, clear 
water, and then these children can live." 

And think of Standing Bear and his people, 
taken by fraud and force from their lands to 
the Indian Territory Reservation, and after 
the usual hardships and wrongs incident to 
such removals, with no hope from a Govern 
ment which neither kept its promises nor lis 
tened to their appeals, setting out to try to get 
back to Omaha. Think of these men, stealing 



INTRODUCTORY. 11 

away in the night, leaving their little children, 
their wives and parents, prostrate, dying, des 
titute! They were told that they could not 
leave that they must stay there; that they 
would be followed and shot if they attempted 
to go away. They had no money; they had no 
food. They were sick and faint. They were 
on foot, and but poorly clad. Yet they strug 
gled on through the snow day after day, week 
after week, leaving a bloody trail where they 
passed; leaving their dead in the snow where 
they passed. And this awful journey lasted 
for more than fifty days! And what happened 
to these poor Indians after that fearful jour 
ney? They did not go to the white man for 
help. They did not go back to their old homes. 
They troubled no one. They went to a neigh 
boring friendly tribe. This tribe gave them 
a little land, and they instantly went to work 
to make homes and prepare a place for the 
few of their number still alive whom they had 
left behind. Then came the order from Wash 
ington, and the Chief was arrested while plow 
ing in the field. In a speech made by him 
after the arrest, and when he was about to be 
taken back, the Chief said : 



12 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"I wanted to go back to my old place north. 
I wanted to save myself and my tribe. I built 
a good stable. I raised cattle and hogs and 
all kinds of stock. I broke land. All these 
things I lost by some bad man. Any one 
knows to take a man from a cold climate and 
put him in the hot sun, down in the south, it 
would kill him. We refused to go down 
there. We afterwards went down to see our 
friends, and see how they liked it. Brothers, 
I come home now. I took my brothers and 
friends and came back here. We went to 
work. I had hold of the handles of my plow. 
Eight days ago I was at work on my farm, 
which the Omahas gave me. I had sowed 
some spring wheat, and wished to sow some 
more. I was living peaceably with all men. 
I have never committed any crime. I was 
arrested and brought back as a prisoner. 
Does your law do that? I have been told, 
since the great war all men were free men, 
and that no man can be made a prisoner 
unless he does wrong. I have done no 
wrong, and yet I am here a prisoner. Have 
you a law for white men, and a different law 
for those who are not white? 

"I have been going around for three years. 
I have lost all my property. My constant 
thought is, What man has done this? Of 
course I know I cannot say no. Whatever 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

they say I must do, I must do it. I know you 
have an order to send me to the Indian Terri 
tory, and we must obey it." 

Afterwards, speaking of the terrible days at 
the Eeservation, this Indian said to an officer : 

"We counted our dead for awhile, but when 
all my children and half the tribe were dead, 
we did not take any notice of anything much. 
When my son was dying, he begged me to 
take his bones back to the old home, if ever I 
got away. In that little box are the bones of 
my son; I have tried to take them back to be 
buried with our fathers." 

I may here add, that in the meantime the 
brother of this Indian, who was left in charge 
of the tribe, was accused of trying to get away 
also. He protested his innocence, but the 
agent had him arrested and brought before 
him. Then he ordered him to be ironed. 
The proud, free savage begged not to be put 
in irons, but the brutal agent persisted. The 
Indian resisted, and was shot dead on the 
spot. 

Think of the Cheyennes last year. They, 
too, had tried to escape from the ^Reservation, 
and reach their homes through the deep snow. 



14 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

This was their only offense. No man had ever 
accused them of any other crime than this love 
of their native haunts, this longing for home. 
They were dying there on the Reservation; 
more than half had already died. And now, 
when taken, they refused to go back. The 
officer attempted to starve them into submis 
sion. They were shut up in a pen without 
food, naked, starving, the snow whistling 
through the pen, children freezing to death in 
their mother s arms ! But they would not sub 
mit. Knowing now that they must die, they 
determined to die in action rather than freeze 
and starve, like beasts in a pen. At a con 
certed signal, they attempted to break through 
the soldiers and reach the open plain. An old 
man was carried on the back of his tottering 
son; a mounted soldier pursued them, and 
hacked father and son to pieces with the same 
sabre-cuts. A mother was seen flying over the 
snow with two children clinging about her 
neck. The wretched savages separated and 
ran in all directions. But the mounted men 
cut them down in the snow. No one asked, 
or even would accept, quarter. They fought 
with sticks, stones, fists, their teeth, like wild 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

beasts. They wanted to die. One little group 
escaped to a ravine. There they were found 
killing each other with a sort of knife made 
from an old piece of hoop. 

And yet you believe man-hunting is over in 
America ! 

It is impossible to write with composure or 
evenness on this subject. One wants to rise 
up and crush things. 

I have mentioned two tribes near at hand, 
whose histories are not unfamiliar to the public 
ear. But what if I should recite the wrongs 
of tribes far away far beyond the Eocky 
Mountains where the Indian Agent has to 
answer to no one ? You would not believe one- 
tenth part told you. The -terrible stories of 
the Cheyennes and the Poncas are very mild 
chapters in the history of our Indian policy. 

Under the stars and stripes, these scenes are 
repeated year after year ; and they will be con 
tinued until they are made impossible by the 
civilization and sense of justice which righted 
that other though far less terrible wrong. 

As that greatest man has said, "We are 
making history in America." This is a con- 



16 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

spicuous fact, that no one who would be re 
membered in this century should forget. We 
are making dreadful history, dreadfully fast. 
How terrible it will all read when the writer 
and reader of these lines are long since forgot 
ten ! Ages may roll by. We may build a 
city over every dead tribe s bones. We may 
bury the last Indian deep as the eternal gulf. 
But these records will remain, and will rise up 
in testimony against us to the last day of our 
race. 

J. M. 



CHAPTEK I. 

MOUNT SHASTA. 

To lord all Godland ! lift the brow 
Familiar to the moon, to top 
The universal world, to prop 
The hollow heavens up, to vow 
Stern constancy with stars, to keep 
Eternal watch while eons sleep y 
To tower proudly up and touch 
God s purple garment-hems that sweep 
The cold blue north ! Oh, this were much ! 

Where storm-lorn shadows hide and hunt 
I knew thee, in thy glorious youth, 
And loved thy vast face, white as truth; 
1 stood where thunderbolts were wont 
To smite thy Titan-fashioned front, 
And heard dark mountains rock and roll / 
I saw the lightnings gleaming rod 
Reach forth and write on heaven s scroll 
The awful autograph of God 1 

AND what a mighty heart these Sierras have! 
Kissing the purple of heaven now, and now 
in their awful deeps hiding the shrinking 
form of darkness from the sun. 

2 (IT) 



18 



SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 



The shaggy monsters that prowl there, the 
mountains of gold that lie waiting there, the 
mystery and the splendor! Oh keep with me, 
my friend, for a little while in the Sierras; 
breathe their balm and health, see their sub 
limity, feel their might and their majesty; step 
upward, as on stepping stairs to heaven ; and 
my word for it, you will be none the worse. 

In a canyon here, deep, deep, away down in 
the darkness, where night seems to have an 
abiding place, where the sun sifts through the 
pine-tops timidly, where the loftiest trees tip 
toe up and seem to strive to reach out of the 
edge of the chasm, there gurgles a little 
muddy stream among the boulders, about the 
miners legs, as they bend their backs wearily 
and toil for gold. 

Here the smoke curls up from a low log 
cabin; there a squirrel barks a nut on the roof 
of a ruined and deserted miner s home, and 
away up yonder, where the deep gorge is so 
narrow you can almost leap across it, the wild 
beasts prowl as if it were really night, and 
givat owls beat their wings against the boughs 
of the dense wood in everlasting darkness, 
ttut high over gorge and wilderness, gleaming 



MOUNT SHASTA. 19 

against the cold blue sky, towers Mount 
Shasta, the monarch of the Sierras. 

Here, where the canyon debouches into the 
little valley, once stood a populous mining 
camp; and a little further on, where the sun 
fell in full splendor, a few farms of a primitive 
kind, tended by broken-down old miners, lay. 

The old glory of the camp was gone, and 
only a few battered and crippled men were 
left. It was as if there had been a great bat 
tle of the giants, and the victorious and suc 
cessful had gone away with all the fruits of 
victory, and left the wounded, the helpless, 
the half-hearted behind. The mining camp 
at the mouth of the great canyon had been 
worked out, so far as the placer mines went, 
and these few broken men who remained, as 
a rule, were turning their attention to other 
things. Here one had planted a little garden 
on the hillside, on a spot that had once been a 
graveyard. There, an old lawyer had grown 
grape-vines all over and about the door and 
chimney of his cabin, till men said it looked 
like a spider-web. 

But old Forty-nine only bored deeper and 
deeper into the spur of the mountain, and paid 



20 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

but little attention to any of the changes that 
went on around him. He had been working 
in that tunnel alone for nearly twenty-five 
years. He was a man with a history men 
said a murderer. He shunned men, and men 
shunned him. Was he rich ? He professed 
to be very poor ; men said he must be worth a 
million. Would a man work on twenty-five 
years in one tunnel, and all alone, for nothing? 
But if rich, why did he remain ? 

Still further down, and quite on the edge of 
the valley, stood another cabin. And this was 
quite overgrown with vines, and was quite hid 
den away in a growth of pines that gathered 
over it. Then there was an undergrowth of 
fruit trees that grew inside the fence and about 
the lonely porch. On this porch had sat, for 
years and years, a tawny, silent old woman. 
She was sickly had neither wealth, wit nor 
beauty and so, so far as the world went, was 
lei t quite alone. 

But there was another and an all-sufficient 
reason why neither man or woman came that 
way. She was an Indian. Do not imagine 
this a wild Indian woman. Indian she was; 
but remember, the Catholics had more than 



MOUNT SHASTA. 21 

half civilized nearly all the native Californi- 
ans long before we undertook to kill them. 

This Indian woman would have been called 
by strangers a Mexican woman. She was very 
religious, and had imbued her boy with all her 
beautiful faith and simple piety. 

I know that the spectacle of an old Indian 
woman and her "half-breed" son, represented 
as the morality and religion of a camp made 
up of " civilized" Saxons, will seem somewhat 
novel to you. But I knew this Indian boy and 
his mother well, and know every foot of the 
ground I intend to go over, and every fact I 
propose to narrate. And if you are not pre 
pared to receive this as truth, I prefer you to 
close this page right here. 

To make a moment s digression, with your 
permission, let me state briefly and frankly, 
once for all, that the only really religious, un 
questioning and absolutely devout Christians 
I ever met in America are the Indians. I know 
of no other people so faithful and so blindly 
true to their belief, outside of the peasantry of 
Italy. Be their beautiful faith born of igno 
rance or what, I do not say. I simply assert 
that it exists. There is no devotion so true as 



22 



SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 



that of a converted Indian. Maybe it is t T ie 
devotion of idolatry, the faith of superstition. 
But I repeat, it is sincere. And let me fur 
ther say, it seems to me whatever is worth be 
lieving at all, is worth believing utterly and 
entirely just as these simple children of the 
wilderness believe, without doubt or question. 
I know nothing so beautiful may I say pic 
turesque? as the Ummatillalndiansof Oregon 
at worship on Sunday. Not a man, woman or 
child of all the tribe absent. Not one voice 
silent when the hymns are given out, in all that 
vast, gaily colored and singular assemblage. 

This is the tribe of which the white settlers 
asked and received protectionist year when the 
Shoshonees ravaged the country, beat off the 
soldiers, and slew some of the settlers. And 
yet there is a bill before Congress to-day to 
take away the few remaining acres from this 
tribe and open up the place to white settlers. 
Indeed, it seems that every member of Con 
gress from Oregon has just this one mission; 
for the first, and almost the only thing he does 
while there, is to introduce and urge the pas 
sage of this bill, whereby the red man is to be 



MOUNT SHASTA. 23 

turned out of bis well-tilled fields, and the 
white man turned into them. 

In truth, these very fields have long been 
staked off and claimed by bold, bad white 
men, who hover about the borders of this 
Reservation, waiting for the long- promised 
law which is to take this land from the 
owners and give it to them. They nominate 
their members of Congress on his pledge and 
bond, and constant promise, to take this 
land from the Indian. They vote for and elect 
the only member of Congress from this State 
on that promise, certain that their absolute 
ownership of this graveyard of the Indian is 
only a question of time. Year by year the 
graveyard grows broader ; the fields grow 
narrower ; they grow less in number ; for now 
and then an Indian is found wandering away 
from the Reservation to his former hunting- 
grounds and ancient graves of his fathers. He 
seldom comes back. Sometimes his murderers 
trouble themselves to throw the body in the 
brush or some gorge or canyon. But most fre 
quently it is left where it falls. To say 
that all the people or the best people of this 
brave young State approve of thfc, would be 



24 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

unfair untrue. Yet this does not save the 
Indian, who is doing his best to fit into the 
new order of things around him. He is shot 
down, and neither grand or petit jury can be 
found to punish his murderer. 

But to the story. This little piece of land 
where the old Indian woman had lived and 
brought up her boy, was rich and valuable. It 
was therefore coveted by the white man. At 
first men had said : " She will die soon ; the 
boy will then sell the hut for a song, gamble 
off the money, and then go the way of all who 
are stained with the dark and tawny blood of 
the savage death in a ditch from some un 
known rifle, or death by the fever in the new 
Keservation." But the old woman still lived 
on ; and the boy, by his industry, sobriety, du 
ty and devotion to his mother, put to shame 
the very best among the new generation of 
white men in the mountains. The singular 
manhood of John Logan was the subject of 
remark by all who knew him. With the few 
true men on this savage edge of the world it 
made him fast friends ; with the many outlaws 
and evil natures it made him the subject of 
envy and bitter hatred. 



MOUNT SHASTA. 



25 



What power behind this boy had lifted him 
up and led him on ? Surely no Indian woman, 
wholly unlettered in the ways of the white man, 
good and true as she may have been, had 
brought him up to this high place on which he 
now stood. Who was his father ? and what 
strong hand had reached out all these years 
and kept his mother there in that little hut 
with her boy, while her tribe perished or 
passed away to the hated and horrible Reser 
vation down toward the sea ? 

Who was his father? The Camp had asked 
this a thousand times. The boy himself had 
looked into the deep, pathetic eyes of his 
mother, and asked the question in his heart for 
many and many a year; but he never opened 
his lips to ask her. It was too sad, too sacred 
a subject, and he would not ask of her what she 
would not freely give. And now she lay dying 
there alone on the porch, as her boy stopped 
to talk with the two children, "the babes in 
the wood," and her secret hidden in her own 
heart. 

And who were the " babes in the wood ?" 
Little waifs, fugitives, hiding from the man- 
hunters. As a rule in early days, when the 



26 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

settlers killed off the adult Indians in their 
forays, they took the children and brought 
them up in slavery. But the girl the eldest, 
stronger and lither of these two dark little 
creatures darting, hiding, stealing about this 
ruined old camp, was so wild and spirited, 
even from the first, that no one wanted her. 
And then she was dangerously bright, and 
above all, she did not quite look the Indian; 
men doubted if she really were an Indian or 
no, sometimes. But I remember hearing old 
Leather-Nose, as he sat on a barrel one night 
in the grocery, and squirted amber at the 
back-log, say : " I guess, by gol, she s Injun: 
She s devilish enough. She don t look the 
Injun, I know; but its the cussedness that 
makes me know she s Injun." 

" And when did she come to the camp ?" 
asked a respectable stranger. 

" Don t know. That s it. Nobody don t 
know, and nobody don 7 t care, I guess/ 

Well, don t you know where she came 
from ? Children don J t come down, you know, 
like rain or snow. There were about fifty 
little children left in the Mountain-meadow 
massacre. They are somewhere. These may 



MOUNT SHASTA. 27 

be some of them. Don ? t you know who 
brought them here, or how they came?" 
asked the honest stranger, leaning forward 
and looking into the faces of the wrinkled 
and hairy old miners. 

An old miner turned his quid again and 
again, and at last feeling scant interest in the 
ragged little sister who led her little brother 
about by the hand, and stood between him and 
peril as she kept their liberty drily answered, 
along with his fellows, as follows: " Some 
said an old Indian that died had her ; but I 
don t know. Forty-nine knows most about 
her. When he s short of grub, and that s 
pretty often now, I guess, why she has to do 
the best she can/ 

" O, it was a sick looking thing at first. 
Why, it wasn t that high, and was all hair and 
bones," growled out an old gray miner, in 
reply to the man. 

" Yes ; and don t you know when we called 
it the baby/ and it used to beg around about 
the cabins ? The poor little barefooted brat. " 

" Yes, and when the * baby nearly starved, 
and eat some raw turnips that made it sick." 

" Yes, and got the colic " 



28 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

" Yes, and Gambler Jake got on his mule 
and started for the doctor." 

" Yes, an got in a poker game at Mariposa, 
and didn t get back for four days." 

" Yes, and the doctor didu t come ; and so 
the baby got well." 

" Yes, just so, just so." And old Col. Billy 
bobbed his head, and fell to thinking of other 
days. 

This little piece of land where the old In 
dian woman had lived so long, and about which 
she had built a fence, was very valuable indeed. 
Valley land was scarce herein the mountains; 
and there was a young orchard, the only thing 
of the kind in the country. And then the 
roads forked there, and two little rivers ran 
together there, and that meant that a town 
would spring up there as the country became 
settled, farms opened, and the Indians were 
swept away. Evil-minded men are never 
without resources. The laws are made to 
restrain such men ; but on the border there 
is no law enforced. So you see how powerful 
are the wicked there; how powerless the weak, 
though never so well disposed. 

In the far West, if an Indian is in your way, 



MOUNT SHASTA. 29 

you have only to report him to the Agent of 
the Indian Reservation. That is all you have 
to do. He disappears, or dies. This Indian 
Agent is only too anxious to fill up his wast 
ing ranks of Indians. They are dying every 
day. And if they all should die, sooner or 
later the fact may be known at Washington, 
and in the course of a few years the Reserva 
tion and office would be abolished together. 
And then each additional Indian contributes 
greatly to the Agent s income, for each Indian 
must be fed and clothed or at least, the Agent 
is permitted to draw clothing, blankets and 
food for every Indian brought upon the Res 
ervation. As to the Indians receiving these 
things, that is quite another affair. 

Well, here were men wanting this land. 
Down yonder, far away to the scorching South, 
at the edge of the level alkali lands, in a tule 
swamp, where the Indians taken from the 
mountains were penned up and dying like 
sheep in a corral, was a bold, enterprising In 
dian Agent who was gathering in, under or 
ders of his Government, all the Indians of 
Northern California. He could appoint a hun- 



30 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

dred deputies, and authorize them to bring in 
the Indians wherever found. 

The two children "the babes in the wood" 
had been taken to the Reservation ; but being 
bold and active, they contrived to soon escape 
and return to the mountains. Men whispered 
that the girl owed her escape to the great and 
growing favor in which she was held by one 
of the deputy agents, who, with his partner, 
a rough and coarse-grained man, had their 
homes in this camp. The cabin of these two 
deputy agents, Dosson and Emens, stood not 
far from that of old Forty-Nine. But so far as 
I can remember, the old man and the newly 
appointed deputy agents had always been at 
enmity. 

This Dosson was certainly a bad man. He 
was in every sense of the word a desperado, 
and so was his partner; just the men most 
wanted by the head agent at the Reservation 
to capture and bring in Indians. 

But whether this girl owed her escape or 
not to this ruffian, Dosson, certain it is that 
on her return she avoided his cabin, and when 
not in the woods, hovered about that of old 
Forty-Nine. This enraged Dosson beyond 






MOUNT SHASTA. 31 

degree. To add to his anger, she now began 
to show a particular preference for John Logan. 
The idea of having an Indian for a rival was 
more than this ignorant and brutal Deputy 
Agent could well bear, and he set to work at 
once to rid himself of the object of his hatred. 
The hard and merciless man-hunter almost 
shouted with delight at a new idea which 
now came upon him with the light and sud- 
deness of a revelation. He ran at once to his 
partner, and told him of his determination. 

Then these two men sat down and talked a 
long time together. They made marks in the 
sand with sticks. They set up little stakes in 
the sand, and seemed delighted as they reached 
their heads out and looked down from the 
mouth of their tunnel toward the Indian farm. 
That night these two men stole down to 
gether, and set up stakes and made corner 
marks about John Logan s land while he slept, 
and then rolled themselves in their blankets, 
and spent the night inside the limits of their 
new location. Having done this, and sent a 
notice of their pre-emption to the Surveyor 
General, to be filed as their declaration of claim 
to the little farm with the orchard, they en- 



32 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

tered complaint against John Logan, and so 
sat down to await results. 

Meantime, this old woman sat alone, with a 
great dog by her side, sick and desolate, wait 
ing her sun of life to set, piously waiting, dark 
browed, thoughtful ; while her tall handsome 
boy, meek, obedient, with the awful curse of 
Cain upon his brow, the mark of Indian 
blood, was toiling on up in the canyon alone. 

You had better be a negro you had better 
be ten times a negro, were it possible than 
be one-tenth part an Indian in the West. 
The Indian will have little to do with one 
who is part Indian. And as for the white 
man, unless the Indian is willing to be his 
slave, do him homage and service, he would 
sooner take a leper in his house or to his 
heart. 

Up and above the Indian woman s house, 
in the dense wood and on the spur of the 
mountain, wound an old Indian trail. Along 
this trail, above the hidden house, stole two 
little creatures tawny, sunburnt, ragged, 
wretched, yet full of affection for each other. 
These were the two wretched children escaped 
from the Reservation. They were now being 



MOUNT SHASTA. 33 

harbored by old Forty-nine. For this he 
was liable to be arrested and punished. 
Knowing this, he kept his gun loaded and 
standing in the corner of his cabin, where the 
children slept at night. 

How strange that this one man, the most 
despised and miserable, should be the only one 
to reach a hand to help these little waifs of the 
woods! And who knew or who cared from 
where they came? They did not look the 
Indian, though they acted it to perfection. 
They would run away and hide from the face 
of man. Yet the girl, under the passionate 
California sun, was almost blossoming into 
womanhood. They were called brother and 
sister. God knows- if they were or no. 
Break up tribes, families, as these had been 
broken up fire into a flock of young quails all 
day an d who knows how soon or where the 
few that escape may gather together again, or 
if they will know each other when they meet, 
years after in the woods ? 

Children are so impressionable. They had 
heard some one in the camp call the old 
Indian woman who sat forever on the porch in 
the dense foliage, with the big dog beside her, 



SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

a witch. They did not know what that 
meant. But they knew it was something 
dreadful, and they shunned and abhorred her 
accordingly. Yet the girl knew John Logan, 
her tall handsome son, well, and liked him, too. 

As they stole along the dim old Indian 
trail, their necks were stretched toward the old 
Indian woman s hut below. They were as 
noiseless as two panthers. At last the girl 
stopped, stood still, pointed and half pushed 
the boy before and in through the thicket, 
past an occasional lonely cabin, toward the 
widow s woody home. 

This old woman had long been ailing. She 
was now very ill. You are surprised to learn 
of sickness in the heart of the Sierras ? I 
tell you that if you were to wash down moun 
tains and uproot forests in the moon were 
such a thing possible the ague would sieze 
hold of you and shake you for it. Nature is 
revengeful. But to return to the wilderness. 
What a wilderness this was ! Only here and 
there, at long intervals, a little cabin down in 
the deep, dense wood; these cabins scattered as 
if the hand of some mighty sower had reached 
out over the wilderness, and had sown and strown 



MOUNT SHASTA. 35 

them there, to take root and grow to some great 
harvest of civilization. The narrow Indian 
trail wound along, almost entirely hidden by 
overhanging woods a trail that turned and 
twisted at every little obstacle; here it was the 
prostrate form of some patriarch tree, or here 
it curved and cork-screwed in and out through 
mighty forest-kings, that stood like comrades 
in ranks of battle. 

Where did this little Indian trail lead to? 
Where did it begin? How many a love-tale 
had been told in the shadow of those mighty 
trees that reached their long, strong arms out 
over the heads of all passers-by, in a sort of 
priestly benediction? 

Where did the Indian trail lead to? To the 
West. But leaves were strewn thick along it 
now. The Indian had gone, to come back no 
more. Ever to the West points the Indian s 
path. Ever down to the great gold shore of 
the vast west sea leads the Indian s path. And 
there the waves sweep in and obliterate his 
foot-prints forever. 

The two half-wild children who had disap 
peared down the dim trail a few moments be 
fore, now suddenly re-appear. They are eager 



36 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

and excited. This boy cannot be above ten 
years old; yet he looks old as a man. The 
girl may be twelve, fifteen, or even sixteen. 
Age at such a period is a matter of either blood 
or climate. She has a shock of unkempt hair; 
she wears a tattered dress of as many colors as 
Jacob s coat. She has one toeless boot on one 
foot; on the other she wears a shoe so big that 
it might hold both her feet. Down over this 
shoe rolls a large red woolen stocking, leaving 
her shapely little ankle bleeding from brier- 
scratches. In her hand she swings a large, 
coarse straw hat by its broad red ribbons. Her 
every limb is full of force and fire; her voice 
is firm and resolute, but not rapid. Hers is 
a splendid energy, needing but proper direc 
tion. 

Her brother, who puffs and pants at her side, 
is named Johnny; but the wild West, which 
has a habit of naming things because they look 
it, has dubbed him "Stumps," since he is short 
and fat. He is half-clad in a pair of tattered 
pants, a great straw hat, and a full, stuffy, 
check shirt, which is held in subjection by a 
pair of hand-made woolen suspenders the 
work of his sister. 



MOUNT SHASTA. 37 

Both are out of breath both are looking 
back wildly; but Stumps huddles up again and 
again close under his sister s arm, as if he fears 
he might be followed, and looks to her for pro 
tection. She draws him close to her, and then 
looking back, and then down into his upturned 
face, says breathlessly: 

"Stumps! Oh, Stumps, did you get em, 
Stumps?" 

The boy shrinks closer to his sister, and 
again looking back, and then seeing for a cer 
tainty that he is not followed, he grows bolder 
and says: 

"Git em, Carats? Look there! And that 
un is your n, Carats; and you can have both 
of em if you want em, for I don t feel hun 
gry now, Carats," and here he hitches up his 
pants, and wipes his nose on his sleeve. 

"Why, Stumps, don t you feel hungry 
now?" Then suddenly beholding two upheld 
ruddy peaches, she catches her breath, and 
says: "Oh, oh!" and she starts back and 
throws up her hands. "Oh, the pretty, pretty 
peaches!" 

"Here, take em both, Carrie I ain t hun 
gry now." 



38 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"No, I don t want but one, Stumps one s 
enough. Why, how you tore your pants; and 
your shin s a bleeding, too. Why, poor 
Stumps! 7 

Stumps, looking back, cries: 

"Shoo! Thar war a clog yes, thar war a 
dog! And what do you think! Shoo! I 
thought I heard somethin a comin . Carats, 
old Miss Logan, the Injun woman, seed me !" 

"Why, Stumps! No? 77 

"Yes, she did. When I dim the fence, and 
slid down that sapling in the yard, there she 
laid on the porch on her shuck-bed a-shaking 
with the ager. And, Carats, she was a-look- 
ing right straight at me yes, she was; so help 
me, she was." 

"Why, Stumps; and what did she do! 
Didn t she holler, and say Seek em, Bose? " 

" Carats, she didn t ; and that s what s the 
matter and that s why I don t want to eat 
any peaches, Carats. Carats, I wish she 
had T do, I do, so help me. Let s not eat 
em let s take em back Carrie, sister Car 
rie, let s take em back." 

Carrie thoughtfully and tenderly gazes in 
his face. 



MOUNT SHASTA. 39 

" Let s take em to old Forty-nine, Johnny. 
There ain t nothing he can eat, you know ; 
an then he s been a-shakin since melon- time, 
an Johnny, I don t think we are very good 
to him, anyhow." 

Stumps, scratching his bleeding shin with 
his foot, exclaims : 

" I ve barked my shin, and I ve tore d my 
pants, an I don t care ! But I won t take 
him a peach that I ve stoled. Why, what 
would he think, Carats? He d die dead, he 
would, if he thought I d stoled them peaches 
from the poor old sick Injun woman ; yes he 
would, Carats." 

"Johnny, I ll tell him we found em," as 
Stumps looks doubtingly at her, " tell him we 
found em in a tree, Stumps. Yes tell him we 
found em away up in the top of a cedar tree." 

" But I don t want to tell no lie, nor do 
nothin bad no more, and I want to go home, 
I do." 

" Well, Stumps Johnny, brother Johnny, 
what will we do with them? W.e can t stand 
here all day. I want to go home, too. Oh, 
this hateful, hateful peach ! I want to go 



40 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

right off !" and the girl, hiding her face in her 
hands, begins to weep. 

" Oh, sister Carrie sister, don t, don t ; sis 
ter, don t, don t !" 

" Then let s eat em." 

" I don t like peaches." 

" I don t like peaches either!" cries Carrie, 
throwing back her hair, wiping her eyes, and 
trying to be bright and cheerful. " I never 
could eat peaches. I like pine-nuts, and cow- 
cumbers, and tomatuses, and pine-nuts. 
Oh, I m very fond of pine-nuts. I like 
pine-nuts roasted, and tomatuses, an I like 
chestnuts raw, an tomatuses. Don t you like 
pine-nuts and tomatuses, Johnny, and cow- 
cumbers ?" 

" I don t like nothin any more." 

" Then, Johnny, take em back." 

" I I I take em back by myself ? I take 
em back, an hear old Bose growl, and look 
into her holler eyes ?" Here the boy shud 
ders, and looking around timidly, he creeps 
closer to his.sister and says, as he again gazes 
back in the direction of the Indian woman s 
cabin : " I d be afraid she might be dead, Car 
ats, an there d be nobody to hold the dog. 



MOUNT SHASTA. 41 

Oh, I see her holler eyes looking at me all the 
time. If she d only let the dog come. Con 
found her! If she d only let the dog come I" 

"Oh, Johnny, Johnny brother Johnny, 
come, lets go home ! Shoo I There s some 
body coming. It s John Logan, coming 
home from his work." 

As the girl speaks, John Logan, the sick 
woman s son, a strong handsome man, only 
brown as if browned by the sun, with a pick 
on his shoulder and a gold-pan slanting under 
his arm, comes whistling along the trail. 
Seeing the children, he stops and says : 

" Why, children, good evening ! What are 
you running away for? Come, come now, 
don t be so shy, my little neighbors, and don t 
give the trail all to me because I happen to be 
a man, and the strongest. Come, Johnny, 
give me your hand. There ! an honest, chubby 
little fist it is. Why, what have you got in 
your other hand ? Been gathering nuts, hey ? 
You little squirrel! Give me a nut, won t 
you." 

Carrie approaches, dives her hand into her 
ragged pocket and reaches the man a heaped 
handful of nuts. 



42 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

" There, if you ll have nuts 1 11 bring you 
nuts ; I 11 bring you lots of nuts, I will ; I 11 
bring you a bushel of nuts, an some tomat- 



uses." 



" Oh, you are too kind. But now I must 
hasten home to mother. Come, shake hands 
again, and say good-bye." The girl gives her 
left hand. " No your right hand." 

Carrie is bothered, and slips the peach in 
her left hand behind, and, with a lifted face, 
full of glow and enthusiasm, says : 

"I ll bring you a whole bag full of nuts, I 
will," and she reaches him her hand eagerly. 

"Oh Carrie, I have a nice little surprise for 
you, and if you won t tell I ll let you into the 
secret. You won t tell ?" 

He comes close to her, sits down his gold- 
pan, and resting his pick on the ground, with 
his two hands on the top of the handle, leans 
toward her and looks into her innocent uplift 
ed face. 

The girl s eyes brighten, and she seems to 
grow tall and beautiful under his earnest gaze. 

" I won t tell, sir. Oh, please to trust me, 
sir I won t tell, Mr. John Logan!" 

The boy eagerly comes forward also. 



MOUNT SHASTA. 43 

" I won t tell, neither. I won t tell neither ; 
so help me!" 

"Well, then, come close to me, Johnny, 
come close up here, and look in my face 
there ! Why, I declare the pleasure I now 
have, telling you this, is more than gold! 
And I need money sadly enough." 

"You re awful poor, ain t you?" asked 
Stumps, hitching up his pants. 

" Been workin all day and ain t got much 
in the pan," says Carrie, looking sidewise at 
the few colors of gold in the bottom edge of 
the pan. 

" Ah, yes, Carrie. Look at my hands hard 
and rough as the bark of a tree ; but I don t 
mind that, Carrie, I was born here, I was born 
poor, I shall live poor and die poor. But I 
don t mind it, Carrie. I have my mother to 
love and look after, and while she lives I am 



content." 



The girl looks at the woods, looks at the 
man, and then once more at the woods, and 
at last in her helplessness to solve the problem, 
falls to eating nuts, as usual ; while the man 
continues, as if talking to himself: 

"This is the peace of Paradise; and seethe 



44 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

burning bush ! Now I can well understand 
that Moses saw the face of God in the bush of 
fire." 

" Oh," the girl says to herself, " if he only 
would be cross ! If he only would say some 
thing rough to us ! If he only would cuss." 

She resolves to say or do something to 
break the spell. She asks eagerly : 

"Are you going to give something to 
Stumps and me? I mean Johnny and me?" 

"Yes, yes, to-morrow evening, after my 
work is done. And now I am going to tell 
you and Johnny what it is. It ain t much ; 
it s the least little thing in the world ; but I 
don t deserve any credit for even that it s my 
poor dear old mother s idea. She has laid 
there, day after day, on the porch, and she has 
been thinking, not all the time of her own 
sickness and sorrow, but of others, as well ; and 
she has thought much of you." 

The boy stands far aside, and at mention of 
this he jerks himself into a knot, his head 
drops down between his shoulders, his mouth 
puckers up, and he exclaims " Oh, hoka !" 

" Thought of me ?" says Carrie. 

"Of you, Carrie. And listen; I must tell 



MOUNT SHASTA. 45 

you a little story. When I was a very young 
man, and killed my first grizzly bear, I bought 
a little peach-tree and planted it in the cor 
ner of the yard, as people sometimes plant 
trees to remember things. Well, my mother, 
she had the ague that day powerful, for it was 
after melon-time, and she sat on the porch 
and shook, and shook, and shook, and watched 
me plant it, and when I got done, my mother 
she cried. I don t know why she cried, Car 
rie, but she did. She cried and she cried, and 
when I went up to her, and put my arms 
around her neck and kissed her, she only 
cried the more, for she was sort of hysteric- 
like, you know, and she said she knew she d 
never live to eat any fruit off of that tree." 

Carrie stops eating nuts a moment. 

" But she will she will get well, Mr. John 
Logan she will get well, won t she ? " 

"Ah, indeed, I believe she will get well, but 
whether she ever gets right well or not, she 
certainly will live to eat peaches from that 
tree. Carrie, we ve talked it all over, and 
what do you think? Why, now listen, I will 
tell you. This tree that I planted, and that 
my poor sick mother was afraid she would not 



46 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

live to eat the fruit from this tree was a 
peach tree." 

Carrie again takes out a handful of nuts 
from her pocket, as if she would like to eat 
them. She looks at them a second, throws 
them away, and hastens to one side. 

"I want to go home," cries Stumps. "I 
don t like peaches, Mr. John Logan. I don t 
I don t so help me," and the boy jerks 
at his pants wildly. 

John Logan turns to him kindly. "Why, 
you never had a peach in your little hand in 
your life." Then turning to Carrie: "Yes, 
Carrie, there has grown this year, high up in 
the sun on that tree, side by side, two and 
only two red, ripe peaches. Why, children, 
don t run away I Wait one moment, and I 
will go a little way with you. As I was about 
to say, these two peaches are at last ripe. I 
own I was the least bit afraid, even after I 
saw them there on that bough one Summer 
morning, that even then my mother might 
die before they became fully ripe. But now 
they are ripe, and this evening I shall pull 
them. And to-morrow, after my day s work 



MOUNT SHASTA. 47 

is done, my sick mother shall eat one, and you 
two shall eat the other." 

Carrie puts up her hand and backs away. 

"Don t don t don t call me Carrie; call 
me Carats Carats Carats like the others 

do!" 

* Why, Carrie! What in the world is the 

matter with, you ? 

"If a body steals, Mr. John Logan if a 
body steals what had a body better do ? " 

"Why, the Preacher says a body should 
confess confess it, feel sorry, and be for 
given. " 

I can t I can t confess, and I can t be 

forgiven !" 

John Logan starts! 

"You you, Carrie ; is it you ? Then you 
have already confessed, and He will forgive 

you!" 

" But such stealing as this nobody noth 
ing can forgive," falling on her knees. " I I 
made my little brother steal your peaches! " 

"You! you made him steal my two 
peaches that I wanted for my sick mother ? 
You you, Carrie ? " 

Stumps rushed forward 



48 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"No No! I done it myself! I done it 
all myself I did, so help me! " 

" But I made him do it! " cries Carrie. " I 
am the biggest, and I knew better I knew 
better. But we could n t eat em. Here 
they are oh I am so glad we couldn t eat 
em!" And they fall on their knees at his 
feet together ; four little hands reach out the 
peaches to him eagerly, earnestly, as if in 
prayer to Heaven. 

The man takes their little hands, and, 
choking with tears, says, in a voice full of 
pathos and pity, and uncovering his head, 
with lifted face, as he remembers something 
of the story the good Priest so often read to 
his mother: "and there was more joy in 
Heaven over the one that was found, than 
over the ninety-and-nine that went not 
astray." 



CHAPTEK II. 

TWENTY CARATS FINE. 

A land that man has newly trod, 
A land that only God has known, 
Through all the soundless cycles flown. 

Yet perfect blossoms bless the sod^ 
And perfect birds illume the trees, 
And perfect unheard harmonies 

Pour out eternally to God. 

A thousand miles of mighty wood 

Where thunder-storms stride fire- shod; 

A thousand flowers every rod, 
A stately tree on every rood; 

Ten thousand leaves on every tree, 

And each a miracle to me; 
And yet there be men who question God I 

AT just what time these two waifs of the 
woods appeared in camp even Forty -nine could 
not tell. They were first seen with the Indian 
woman who went about among the miners, 
picking up bread and bits of coin by dancing, 
singing and telling fortunes. These two Indian 
* (49) 



50 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

women were great liars, and rogues altogether. 
I need not add that they were partly civilized. 

The little girl had been taught to dance 
and sing, and was quite a source of revenue 
to the two Indian women, who had perhaps 
bought or stolen the children. As for the 
boy poor stunted, starved little tiling he 
hung on to his sister s tattered dress all the time 
with his little red hand, wherever she went 
and whatever she did. He was her shadow ; 
and he was at that time little more than a 
shadow in any way. 

Sometimes men pitied the little girl, and 
gave very liberally. They tried to find out 
something about her past life ; for although 
she was quite the color of the Indian, she had 
regular features, and at times her poor pinched 
face was positively beautiful. The two 
children looked as if they had been literally 
stunted in their growth from starvation and 
hardship. 

Once a good-hearted old miner had bribed 
the squaws to let the children come to his 
cabin and get something to eat. They came, 
and while they were gorging themselves, the 
boy sitting close up to the girl all the time, and 



TWENTY CAKATS FINE. 51 

looking about and back over his shoulder and 
holding on to her dress, this man questioned 
her about her life and history. She did not 
like to talk ; indeed, she talked with difficulty 
at first, and her few English words fell from 
her lips in broken bits and in strange confu 
sion. But at length she began to speak more 
clearly as she proceeded with her story, and 
became excited in its narration. Then she 
would stop and seem to forget it all. Then 
she went on, as if she was telling a dream. Then 
there would be another long pause, and confu 
sion, and she would stammer on in the most 
wild and incoherent fashion, till the old miner 
became quite impatient, and thought her as 
big an imposter as the Indian woman whom 
she called her mother. He finally gave them 
each a loaf of bread, and told them they could 
go back to their lodge. This lodge consisted 
of a few poles set up in wigwam fashion, and 
covered with skins and old blankets and birch. 
A foul, ugly place it was, but in this wigwam 
lived two Indian women and these two chil 
dren. 

Men, or rather beasts no, beasts are decent 
creatures; well then, monsters, full of bad 



52 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

rum, would prowl about this wretched lodge 
at night, and their howls, mixed with those 
of the savages, whom they had made also 
drunk, kept up a state of things frightful to 
think of in connection with these two sensi 
tive, starving little waifs of the woods. 

Who were they, and where did they come 
from? Sometimes these children would start 
up and fly from the lodge at night, and hide 
away in the brush like hunted things, and 
only steal back at morning when all was still. 
At such times the girl would wrap her little 
brother (if he was her brother) in her own 
scant rags, and hold him in her arms as he 
slept. 

One night, while some strange Indians were 
lodging there, a still more terrible scene trans 
pired in this dreadful little den than had yet 
been conceived. The two children fled as 
usual into the darkness, back into the deep 
woods. Shots were heard, and then a death- 
yell that echoed far up and down the canyon. 
Then there were cries, shrieks of women, as 
if they were being seized and borne away. 
Fainter and fainter grew their cries; further 
and further, down on the high ledge of the 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 53 

canyon in the darkness, into the deep wood, 
they seemed to be borne. And at last their 
cries died away altogether. 

The next morning a dead Indian was found 
at the door of the empty lodge. But the 
women and the children were nowhere to be 
seen. Some said the Indian Agent s men had 
come to take the Indians away, and that the 
man resisting had been shot, while the women 
and children were taken to the Reservation, 
where they belonged. But there was a darker 
story, and told under the breath, and not 
spoken loud. Let it be told under the breath, 
and briefly here, also. Some drunken wretches 
had shot the Indians, carried the women down 
to the dark woods above the deep swollen 
river, and then, after the most awful orgies 
ever chronicled, murdered them and sunk 
their bodies in the muddy river. 

It was nearly a week after that the two 
children stole down from the wooded hill-side 
into the trail, where old Forty-nine found them 
on his return from work. They were so weak 
they could not speak or cry out for help. 
They could only reach their little hands and 
implore help, as, timid and frightened, they 



54 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

tottered towards this first human being they 
had dared to face for a whole week. 

The strong man hesitated a moment ; they 
looked so frightful he wanted to escape from 
their presence. But his grand, noble nature 
came to the surface in a second; and dropping 
his pick and pan in the trail, he caught up 
the two children, and in a moment more was, 
with one in each arm, rushing down the trail 
to his cabin. He met some men, and passed 
others. They all looked at him with wonder. 
One even laughed at him. 

And it is hard to comprehend this. There 
were good men good in a measure; men 
who would have gallantly died to save a 
woman men who were true men on points of 
honor; yet men who could not think of even 
being civil to an Indian, or any one with a bit 
of Indian blood in his veins. Is our govern 
ment responsible for this? I do not say so. 
I only know that it exists ; a hatred, a preju 
dice, more deeply seated and unreasonable 
than ever was that of the old slave-dealer for 
the black man. 

Forty-nine did not return to his tunnel the 
next day, nor yet the next. This cabin, 



TWENTY CAEATS FINE. 55 

wretched as it became in after years when he 
had fallen into evil habits, had then plenty to 
eat, and there the starved little beings ate as 
they had never eaten before. 

At first the little boy would steal and hide 
away bread while he ate at the table. The 
first night, after eating all he could, he slept 
with both his pockets full and a chunk up his 
sleeve besides. 

This boy was never a favorite. He was so 
weak, so dependent on his sister. It seemed 
as if he had been at one time frightened almost 
to death, and had never quite gotten over it. 
And so Forty-nine took most kindly to the 
girl, and they were soon fast friends. Yet 
ever and always her shadow, the little boy, 
whom Forty-nine named Johnny, kept at her 
side as I have said before; his little red 
hand reached out and clutching at her 
tattered dress. 

After a few weeks the girl began to tell 
strange, wild stories to the old man. But ob 
serving that Forty-nine doubted these, as the 
other man had, she called them dreams, and so 
would tell him these wild and terrible dreams 
of the desert, of blood, of murder and massa- 



56 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

ere, till the old man himself, as the girl shrank 
up to him in terror, became almost frightened. 
He did not like to hear these dreams, and she 
soon learned not to repeat them. 

One evening a passing miner stopped, placed 
a broad hand on either door-jamb, and put 
ting his great head in at the open door, asked 
how the little "copper-colored pets" got on. 

"Pard," answered Forty-nine, kindly, and 
with a nod of the head back toward the 
children playing in the corner, "they are 
not coppers; no, they are not. I tell you that 
girl is not copper, but gold. Yes she is, 
Pard ; she is twenty carats. 

"Twenty carats gold! Well, Twenty Carats, 
come here! Come here, Carats," called out 
the big head at the door. 

The girl came forward, and a big hand fell 
down from the door-jamb on her bushy head 
of hair, and the man was pleased as he looked 
down into the uplifted face. And so he 
called her "Carats," and that became her 
name. 

Other passing miners stopped to look in at 
the open door where the big head had looked 
and talked to the timid girl, and misunder- 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 57 

standing the name, they called her Carrie ; 
and Carrie she was called ever afterwards. 

But the boy who had been so thin, soon 
grew so fat and chubby that some one named 
him "Stumps." There was no good trying 
to get rid of that name. He looked as though 
his name ought to be Stumps, and Stumps it 
was, in spite of the persistent efforts of old 
Forty-nine to keep the name in use which he 
had given him. And this was all that Forty- 
nine or any one could tell of these two 
children. 

And now, how beautiful Carrie had grown 
by the time the leaves turned brown! Often 
Dosson saw her hovering about the cabin of 
old Forty-nine, flitting through the woods 
with her brother, or walking leisurely with 
Logan on the hill down the dim old Indian 
trail. 

Mother Nature has her golden wedding 
once a year, and all the world is invited. She 
has many gala days, too, besides, and she cele 
brates them with songs and dances of delight. 
In the full bosomed, teeming, jocund Spring, 
I have seen the trees lean together and rustle 
their leaves in whisperings of love. I have 



58 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

seen them reach their long strong arms to each 
other, and intertwine them as if in fond affec 
tion, as the bland, warm winds, coming up 
from the South, blew over them and warmed 
their hearts of oak old trees, too, gnarled and 
knotted old fellows that had bobbed their 
heads together through many and many a 
Spring ; that had leaned their lofty and storm- 
stained tops together through many and many 
a Winter; that had stood, like mighty sol 
diers, shoulder to shoulder, in friendships knit 
through many centuries. The birds sing and 
flutter, fly in and out of the dark deep cano 
pies of green, build nests, and make love in 
myriads. How the squirrels run and chatter 
and frisk, and fly from branch to branch, with 
their bushy tails tossing in the warm wind! 
Under foot, ten thousand tall strange flowers 
and weeds and long spindled grasses grow, and 
reach up and up, as if to try to touch the sun 
light above the tops of the oak and ash and 
pine and fir and cedar and maple and cherry 
and sycamore and spruce and tamarack, and 
all these that grow in common confusion here 
and shut out the sun from the earth as perfect 
ly as if all things dwelt forever in cloudland. 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 59 

The cabin of old Forty-nine was very mod 
est; it hid away in the canyon as if it did not 
wish to be seen at all. And it was right ; for 
verily it was scarcely presentable. It was an 
old cabin, too, almost as old as little " Carats," 
if indeed any one could tell how old she was. 
But it, unlike herself, seemed to be growing 
tired and weary of the world. She had been 
growing up as it had been growing down. 
The moss was gathering all over the round, 
rough logs on the outside, and the weeds and 
wild vines each year grew still more ambitious 
to get quite to the top of the cabin, and peep 
down into the mysterious crater of a chimney 
that forever smoked in a mournful and 
monotonous sort of way, as if watchers were 
there Vestal virgins, who dared not let their 
fires perish, on penalty of death. 

" Drunken, wretched, cracked and crazy old 
Forty-nine," the camp said," he can never 
build a new cabin, for he can t stay sober long 
enough to cut down a tree." And the camp 
told the ugly truth. 

"Why don t Forty -nine build a new cabin?" 
asked Gar Dosson one day, as he passed that 



60 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

way, with a string of fish in his hand and a 
coon on his back. 

"Poor dear Forty-nine s got the shakes so 
he can t get time. It takes him all the time 
to shake, and it takes all his money to buy his 
ager medicine. Poor dear old Forty-nine I" 
and the girl seemed to get a cinder or some 
thing in her eye. ***** 

As the sun settled low, one afternoon, and 
cast long, creeping shadows over the flowery 
land shadows that lay upon and crept along 
the ground, as if they were weary of the day, 
and would like to lie there and sleep, and sleep, 
forever the stealthy step of a man was heard 
approaching the old cabin. There was some 
thing of the tiger in the man s movements, and 
it was clear that his mission, whatever it was, 
was not a mission of peace. * * * 

The man stands out in the clearing of the 
land before the cabin, and peers right and left 
up the trail and down the trail, and then leans 
and listens. Then he takes a glance back over 
his shoulder at his companion and follower, 
Gar Dosson, and being sure that he too is on 
the alert and close on his heels, he steps 
forward. Again the man leans and listens, 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 61 

but seeing no signs of life and bearing no 
sound, be straightens up, walks close to tbe 
cabin, and calls out : 

"Hello, tbe house!" at tbe same time he 
looks to tbe priming of his gun, and then fixes 
bis eye on the door as it slowly opens. He 
drops the breech hastily to the ground as the 
face of Carrie peers forth. 

" Beg pardon, Carrie, my girl ! Is it only 
you rniss ? Beg pardon but we are lookin 7 
for a gentleman a young gentleman, John 
Logan." 

The man is terribly embarrassed as the girl 
looks him straight in the face, and his com 
panion falls back into tbe woods until almost 
bidden from view. 

"Well, and why do you come here, skulking 
like Indians?" 

Tbe man falls back; but recovering, he 
says, over his shoulder, as he turns to go : 

"Yes, skulking around your cabin, like 
that other Injun, John Logan I " 

The man jerks the coon-skin cap up on his 
left ear as he says this, and, tossing his head, 
steps back into tbe thick woods and is gone. 

Later in the evening, John Logan, gun in 



62 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

liand, passes slowly and dreamily down tlie 
trail, close to old Forty-nine s cabin. Stumps 
and Carrie are at play in the wood close at 
hand, and come forth at a bound. 

" Booh ! " cries Carrie, darting around from 
behind a tree. "Booh! Mr. John Logan," 
continues the girl, and then with her two 
dimpled brown hands she throws back the 
glorious storm of black abundant hair, that all 
the time tumbles about her beautiful face. 

"Why, Carrie, is that you? and Stumps, 
too ? I am glad to see you. I I was feeling 
awful lonesome." 

" Been down to Squire Fields again, have n t 
you ? " 

The girl has reached one hand out against 
a tree, and half leaning on it swings her right 
foot to and fro. John Logan starts just a 
little, looks at her, sighs, sets the breech of 
his gun on the ground, and as his eyes turn 
to hers, she sees he is very sad. 

Yes, Carrie, I I am lonesome at my 
cabin since since mother died. All the time, 
Carrie, I see her as I saw her that night, when 
I got home, sitting there on the porch, looking 



TWENTY CAKATS FINE. 63 

straight out at the gate, waiting for me, her 
hand on the dog s head, as if to hold him." 

As he says this, poor little Stumps stands 
up close against a tree, draws his head down, 
and pulls up his shoulders. 

" Yes, her long bony fingers resting on his 
head, holding him and the faithful dog never 
moving for fear he would disturb her for she 
was dead." 

"Oh, Mr. John Logan, don t tell me about 
it don t! " and the girl s apron is again raised 
to her face as she shudders. 

"Poor old woman with the holler eyes," 
says Stumps to himself, in a tone that is 
scarcely audible. 

"But there, never mind." The strong, 
handsome fellow brushes a tear aside, and 
taking up his gun again, tries to be cheerful, 
and shake off the care that encompasses him. 

" And you got lonesome, and went down to 
see Sylvia Fields, didn t you ? " 

Again the girl s foot swings, and she looks 
askance from under her dark, heavy hair, at 
John Logan. 

"Carrie, listen to me. Ever since I can 
remember, my mother waited and watched for 



64 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

my coming at my cabin door. But now, only 
think how lonely it is to live there. I can t 
go away. I have no fortune, no friends, no 
people. What would people say to me and 
of me out in the great world ? Well, I went 
to Squire Fields, and I had a long talk with 
Sylvia." 

The girl starts, and almost chokes. 

"Been to see Sylvia Fields I" and with her 
booted foot she kicks the bark of a tree with 
all her might. "Had a long talk with her! " 
Then she whirls around, plunges her hand in 
her pocket, and swings her dress and says, as 
she pouts out her mouth, 

"Oh, I feel just awful!" 

John Logan approaches her. 

"Why, Carrie, what s the matter ? " 

Carrie still swings herself, and turns her 
back to the man as she says, half savagely, 

"I don t know what s the matter, and I 
don t care what s the matter; but I feel just 
awful, I do! I feel just like the dickens !" 

"But, Carrie, you ought to be very, very 
happy, with all this beautiful scenery, and the 
sweet air in your hair and on your rosy jace. 
And then what a lady you have grown to be ! 



TWENTY CAKATS FINE. 65 

Now don t look cross at me like that! You 
ought to be as happy as a bird." 

"But I ain t happy ; I ain t happy a bit, I 
ain t! " Then, after a pause she continues: 

"I don t like that Gar Dosson. He was 
here looking for you." 

" Here ? Looking for me ? " 

"Yes, and he called old Forty-nine Old 
Blossom-nose. I just hate him." 

" Oh, well, Carrie, you know Forty- nine 
does drink dreadfully, and you know he has 
got a dreadful red face." 

"Mr. John Logan/ cries Carrie, hotly, 
"Forty-nine don t drink dreadfully. He 
don t drink dreadfully at all. He does take 
something for his ager, but he don t drink." 

"Well, his face is dreadful red, anyway," 
answers John Logan. 

Carrie, swinging her foot and thoughtfully 
looking up at the trees, says, after a pause : 

" Do the trees drink ? Do the trees and 
the bushes drink, John Logan ? Their faces 
get awfully red in the fall, too." 

" Carrie, you are cross to-day." 

Carrie, shrugging her shoulders and shak- 
5 



66 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

ing her dress as if she would shake it off her, 
snaps : " I ain t cross." 

" Yes, you are," and the tawny man comes 
up to her and speaks in a kindly tone : " But 
come. Many a pleasant walk we have had in 
these woods together, and many a pleasant 
time we will have together still." 

" We won t ! " 

" Ah, but we will ! Come, you must not be 
so cross ! " 

The girl leans her forehead against the tree 
on her lifted arm, and swings her other foot. 
She looks down at the rounded ankle, and 
says, almost savagely, to herself; "She s got 
bigger feet than I have. She s got nearly 
twice as big feet, she has." 

John Logan looks at the girl with a pro 
found tenderness, as she stands there, pouting 
and swinging her foot. He attempts to ap 
proach her, but she still holds her brow bowed 
to the tree upon her arm, and seems not to see 
him. He shoulders his gun and walks past 
her, and says, kindly, 

" Good-bye, Carrie." 

But the girl s eyes are following him, al 
though she would not be willing to admit it, 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 67 

even to herself. As he is about to disappear, 
she thrusts her hand madly through her hair, 
and pulls it down all in a heap. Still looking 
at him under her brows, still swinging her 
foot wildly, she says: 

" Do you think red hair is so awful ugly ?" 

And what a wondrous glory of hair it was ! 
It was so intensely black ; and then it had 
that singular fringe of fire, or touch of Titian 
color, which seen in the sunset made it almost 
red. 

The man stops, turns, comes back a step or 
two, as she continues : 

" I do I do I Oh, I wish to Moses I had 
tow hair, I do, like Sylvia Fields." 

The man is standing close beside her now. 
He is looking down into her face and she feels 
his presence. The foot does not swing so 
violently now, and the girl has cautiously, 
and, as she believes, unseen, lifted the edge 
of her tattered sleeve to her eyes. " Why 
Carrie, your hair is not red." And he speaks 
very tenderly. " Carrie, you are going to be 
beautiful. You are beautiful now. You are 
very beautiful I" 



68 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

Carrie is not so angry now. The foot stops 
altogether, and she lifts her face and says : 

" No I ain t I ain t beautiful ! Don t you 
try to humbug me. I am ugly, and I know 
it ! For, last winter, when I went down to 
the grocery to fetch Forty-nine he d gone 
down there to get medicine for his ager, Mr. 
John Logan I heard a man say, She is ugly 
as a mud fence/ Oh, I went for him ! I made 
the fur fly ! But that did n t make me pretty. 
I was ugly all the same. No, I m not pretty 
I m ugly, and I know it !" 

" Oh, no, you re not. You are beautiful, and 
getting lovelier every day." Carrie softens and 
approaches him. 

" Am I, John Logan ? And you really 
don t think red hair is the ugliest thing in 
the world ? " 

" Do I really not think red hair is the 
ugliest thing in the world ? Why, Carrie ? " 

Carrie, starting back, looks in his face and 
says, bitterly : " You do. You do think red 
hair is the ugliest thing in all this born world, 
and I just dare you to deny it. Sylvia Fields 
she s got white hair, she has, and you like 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 69 

white hair, you do. I despise her ; I despise 
her so much that I almost choke." 

" Why, now, Carrie, what makes you des 
pise Sylvia Fields ?" 

" I don t know ; I don t know why I des 
pise her, but I do. I despise her with all my 
might and soul and body. And I tell you, 
Mr. John Logan, that" here the lips begin 
to quiver, and she is about to burst into tears 
" I tell you, Mr. John Logan, that I do 
hope she likes ripe bananas ; and I do hope 
that if she does like ripe bananas, that when 
bananas come to camp this fall, that she will 
take a ripe banana and try for to suck it ; and 
I do hope she will suck a ripe banana down 
her throat, and get choked to death on it, I 
do." 

"Oh, Carrie, this is very wicked!" cries 
John Logan, reproachfully, " and I must leave 
you if you talk that way. Good-bye," and 
the man shoulders his gun and again turns 
away. 

" Well, do you think red hair is the ugliest 
thing in the world? Do you? Do you now? " 

" Carrie, don t you know I love the beau 
tiful, red woods of autumn ? " 



70 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

It is the May-day of the maiden s life ; the 
May shower is over again, and the girl lifts 
her beautiful face, and says lightly, almost 
laughing through her tears, 

" And, oh, you did like the red bush, didn t 
you, Mr. John Logan? And, oh, you did 
say that Moses saw the face of God in the 
burning bush, didn t you, Mr. John Logan ?" 

" I want you to tell me a story, I do," inter 
poses Stumps. The boy had stood there a 
long time, first on one foot, then on the other, 
swinging his squirrel, pouting out his mouth, 
and waiting. 

" Yes, tell us a story," urges Carrie. 

"Oh, yes, tell us a story about a coon no, 
about a panther no, a bear. Oh, yes, about 
a bear! about a bear! " cries the boy, " about 
a bear!" 

" Poor, half- wild children 1 " sighs John 
Logan. " Nothing to divert them, their little 
minds go out, curiously seeking something 
new and strange, just, I fancy as older and 
abler people s do in larger ways. Yes, I will 
tell you a story about a bear. And let us sit 
down ; my long walk has tired my legs;" and 
he looks about for a resting place. 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 71 

"Oh, here, this mossy log!" cries Stumps; 
" it s as soft as silk. You will sit there, and I 
here, and sister there." 

John Logan leans his gun against a tree, 
hanging his pouch on the gun. 

" Yes, I will sit here and you, Carrie? " 

"Here. Oh, John Logan, I just fit in." 

One of Logan s arms falls loosely around 
Carrie, the other more loosely around Stumps. 

" Yes, it s a nice fit, Carrie could n t be 
better if cut out by a tailor." 

Carrie, swinging her feet, and looking in 
his face, very happy, exclaims : 

"Oh, John Logan! Don t hold me too 
tight you might hurt me! " 

Stumps laughs. " He don t hold me tight 
enough to hurt me a bit." Then looking up 
in his face, says, " I want a bear story, I do." 

" Well, I will tell you a story out of the 
Bible. Once upon a time there was a great, 
good man a very good and a very earnest 
man. Well, this very good old man, who was 
very bald headed, took a walk one evening ; 
and the very good old man passed by a lot of 
very bad boys. And these very bad boys 
saw the very bald head of the very good man 



72 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

and they said, Go up, old bald head! Go 
up, old bald head ! And it made this 
good man very mad ; and he turned, and he 
called a she-bear out of the woods, and she ate 
up about forty." 

" Oh ! " cries Stumps, aghast. 

"Oh!" adds Carrie. "And he wasn t a 
very good man. He might have been a very 
bald-headed man, but he was n t a very good 
man to have her eat all the children, Mr. 
John Logan." 

Stumps, nursing his squirrel, with his head 
on one side, says : 

" Well, I don t believe it, no how I don t ! 
What was his name the old, bald-head?" 

" His name was Elijah, sir." 

"Elijah! The bald-headed Elijah! Oh, 
I do believe it, then ; for I know when Forty- 
nine and the curly-headed grocery-keeper 
were playing poker, at ten cents ante and pass 
the buck when Forty-nine went down to get 
his ager medicine, sister Forty-nine, he went 
a blind ; and the curly-headed grocery-keeper 
he straddled it, and then Forty-nine seed him, 
he did. And so help me ! he raked in the 
pot on a Jack full. And then the curly- 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 73 

headed grocery-keeper jumped up, and struck 
his fist on the table, and he said, By the 
bald-headed Elijah ! " 

Carrie nestles closer, and in a half whisper, 
mutters, 

" I believe I m getting a little chilly." 

Stumps hears this, and says, 

"Why, Carrie, I m just a sweating and " 

"Shoo! What noise was that? There is 
some one stealing through the bush! " 

John Logan, as he spoke, rose up softly and 
cautiously, and half bent forward as he put 
the two children aside and reached his gun. 
He looked at the cap, ran an eye along the 
barrel, and then twisted his belt about so that 
a pistol was just visible beneath his coat. The 
man had had an intimation of trouble. Indeed, 
his gun had been at hand all this time, but he 
did not care to frighten the two happy waif s 
of the woods with any thought of what might 
happen to him, and even to them. 

These children had but one thing to dread. 
There was but one terrible word to them in 
the language. It was not hunger, not starva 
tion, no, not even death. It was the Reserva 
tion! That one word meant to them, as it 



74 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

means to all who are liable to be carried there, 
captivity, slavery, degradation, and finally 
death, in its most dreadful form. 

And why should it be so dreaded? Make 
the case your own, if you are a lover of lib 
erty, and you can understand. 

Statistics show that more than three-fourths 
of all Indians removed to Reservations of 
late years, die before becoming accustomed to 
the new order of things. 

Yet Indians do not really fear death. But 
they do dread captivity. They are so fond of 
their roving life, their vast liberty room ! 
An Indian is too brave to commit suicide, save 
in the most rare and desperate cases. But his 
heart breaks from home-sickness, and he dies 
there in despair. And then to see his helpless 
little children die, one by one, with the burn 
ing fever, which always overtakes the poor 
captives ! 

" How many of us died ? I do not Know. 
We counted them at first. But when there 
were dead women and children in every house 
and not men enough to bury them, I did not 
count any more," said one of the survivors 
when questioned. 



TWENTY CAKATS FINE. 75 

In earlier times, some of these Reservations 
were well chosen the one on the Ummatilla, 
Oregon, for example. But of late years it 
would seem as if the most deadly locations 
had been selected. Perhaps this is thought 
best by those in authority, as the land is soon 
wanted by the whites if it is at all fit for their 
use. And the Indians in such cases are 
sooner or later made to move on. 

This particular Reservation in California, 
however, never has been and never will bo 
required or used by any man, except for a 
grave. 

Why, in the name of humanity, such things 
are left to the choice and discretion of strangers, 
new men, men who know nothing about 
Indians and care nothing for them, except so 
far as they can coin their blood, is incompre 
hensible. It is a crime. Way out yonder, in 
the heart of a burning plain, by the side of 
an alkali lake that fairly reeked with malaria, 
where even reptiles died, where wild fowl 
never were found; a place that even beasts 
knew better than to frequent, without wood 
or water, ijave stunted sage and juniper and 



76 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

slimy alkali, in the very valley of death this 
Reservation had been established. 

"Ah, just the place. A place where we 
can use our cavalry when they attempt to 
escape," said the young sprig of an officer, 
when some men with a spark of humanity 
dared to protest. 

And that was the reason for removing it so 
far from the sweet, pure air and water of the 
Sierras, and setting these poor captives down 
in the valley of death. 

When they try to escape! Did it never 
occur to the United States to make a Reserva 
tion pleasant and healthy enough for an Indian 
to be content in ? My word for it, if you will 
give him a place fit to live in, he will be wil 
ling to make his home there. 

I know nothing in history so dark and 
dreadful as the story of the Indians in this 
dreaded and deadly Reservation of the valley. 
The Indians surrendered on condition that 
they should be taken to good homes and 
taught the ways of the white man. Once in 
the white man s power, the chains began to 
tighten, tighten at every step. Once there, 
they were divided into lots, families torn apart ? 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 77 

and put to work under guard; men stood over 
them with loaded muskets. The land was full 
of malaria. These men of the mountains be 
gan to sicken, to die; to die by degrees, to die, 
as the hot weather came on, by hundreds. At 
last a few of the strongest, the few still able to 
stand, broke away and found their way back 
to the mountains. They were like living skel 
etons, skin and bone only, hollow-eyed and 
horrible to look upon. Toward the last, these 
poor Indians had crawled on their hands and 
knees to get back. They were followed by 
the soldiers, and taken wherever they could 
be found ; taken back to certain death. One, 
a young man, still possessed of a little 
strength, fought with sticks and stones with 
all his might as he lay in the trail where he 
had fallen in his flight. He lifted his two 
bony hands between the foe and his dying old 
father. The two were taken and chained to 
gether. That night the young man with an 
old pair of scissors, which he had borrowed 
on pretense of wanting to trim his hair, killed 
the old man by pushing one of the points into 
his heart. You could see by the marks of 
blood on the young man s hand next morn- 



78 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

ing, that he had felt more than once to see if 
the old man was quite dead. Then he drove 
the point of the scissors in his own heart, and 
crawled upon the old man s body, embraced it 
and died there. And yet all this had been done 
so quietly that the two guards who marched 
back and forth only a few feet distant, did 
not know till next morning that anything of 
the kind had been. Sometimes these wretches 
would beg, and even steal, on their way back 
from the dreadful Eeservation. They were 
frightful, terrible, at such times. They 
sometimes stood far off outside the gate, and 
begged with outstretched hands. Their ap 
pearances were so against them, hungry, 
dying; and then this traditional hatred of 
four hundred years. 

But this is too much digression. John 
Logan knew all the wrongs of his people only 
too well. He sympathized with them. And 
this meant his own ruin. A few Indians had 
made their way back of late, and John Logan 
had harbored them while the authorities were 
in pursuit. This was enough. An order had 
been sent to bring in John Logan. 

He knew of this, and that was why he 



TWENTY CARATS FINE. 79 

now stood all alert and on fire, as these two men 
came stealing through the bush and straight 
for him. Should he fire ? To shoot, to shoot 
at, to even point a gun at a white man, is death 
to the Indian. A slave of the South had been 
ten -fold more safe in striking his master in the 
old days of slavery, than is an Indian on the 
border in defending his person against a white 
man. 

The two children, like frightened pheasants, 
when the old one gives signs of danger, darted 
down behind him, quick as thought, still as 
death. Their desperate and destitute exist 
ence in that savage land had made them 
savages in their cunning and caution. They 
said no word, made no sign. Their eyes were 
fixed on his every step and motion. He sig 
naled them back. They darted like squirrels 
behind trees, and up and on through the 
thicket, toward the steep and inaccessible bluffs 
above. The two men saw the retreating 
children. They wanted Carrie. They darted 
forward; one of them jerked out and held up 
a paper in the face of John Logan. 

" We want you at the Reservation. Come! 5 
Phin Emens stood full before Logan. He 



80 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

shook the paper in his face. The man did 
not move. Carrie was fast climbing up the 
mountain. She was about to escape. Gar 
Dosson was furious. He attempted to pass, 
to climb the mountain, and to get at the girl. 
Still Logan kept himself between as he slowly 
retreated. 

"Stand aside, and let me get that girl. I 
must take her, too ! " shouted Dosson. Still 
Logan kept the man back. And now the 
children had escaped. Wild with rage, 
Dosson caught Logan by the shoulder and 
shouted, " Come ! " With a blow that might 
have felled an ox, the Indian brought the 
man to the ground. Then, grasping his rifle 
in his right hand, he darted through the 
thicket after the retreating children, up the 
mountain, while Phin Emens stooped over his 
fallen friend. 



CHAPTER III. 

MAN-HUNTERS. 

11 He caused the dry land to appear, 

BIBLE. 

The mountains from that fearful first 
Named day were God^s own house. 
Twas here dread Sinai s thunders burst 
And showed His face. ^Twas here of old 
His prophets dwelt. Lo, it was here 
The Christ did come when death drew near. 

Give me God?s wondrous upper world 
That makes familiar with the moon 
These stony altars they have hurled 
Oppression back, have kept the boon 
Of liberty. Behold, how free 
The mountains stand, and eternally. 

SUCCESS makes us selfish. The history of 
the world chronicles no prosperity like that of 
ours; and so, thinking of only ourselves and 
our success, we forget others. It is easy, 
indeed, to forget the misery of others ; and we 
hate to be told of it, too. 
(81; 



82 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

On a high mountain side overlooking the 
valley, hnng a little camp like a bird s nest. 
It was hidden therein the densest wood, yet it 
looked out over the whole land. No bird, in 
deed no mother of her young, ever chose a 
deeper or wilder retreat, or a place more utter 
ly apart from the paths and approaches of 
mankind. 

Certainly the little party had stood in im 
minent peril of capture, and had prized free 
dom dearly indeed, to climb these crags and 
confront the very snow-peaks in their effort 
to make certain their safety. 

And a little party, too, it must have been ; 
for you could have passed within ten feet of 
the camp and not discovered it by day. And 
by night? Well, certainly by night no man 
would peril his life by an uncertain footing on 
the high cliffs here, only partly concealed 
by the thick growth of chaparral, topt by tall 
fir and pine and cedar and tamarack. And 
so a little fire was allowed to burn at night, for 
it was near the snow and always cold. And 
it was this fire, perhaps, that first betrayed the 
presence of the fugitives to the man-hunters. 

Very poor and wretched were they, too. If 



MAN-HUNTERS. 83 

they had had more blankets they might not 
have so needed the fire. So poor were they, 
in fact, that you might have stood in the very 
heart of the little camp and not discovered 
any property at all without looking twice. A 
little heap of ashes in the center sending up a 
half-smothered smoke, two or three loose Cali 
fornia lion-skins, thrown here and there over 
the rocks, a pair of moccasins or two, a toma 
hawk and that was almost all. No cooking 
utensils had they for what had they to cook? 
No eating utensils for what had they to eat? 

Great gnarled and knotty trees clung to the 
mountain side beyond, and a little to the left 
a long, thin cataract, which, from the valley 
far below, looked like a snowy plume, came 
pitching down through the tree tops. It had 
just been let loose from the hand of God this 
sheen of shining water. Back and beyond all 
this, a peak of snow, a great pyramid and 
shining shaft of snow, with a crown of clouds, 
pierced heaven. 

Stealthily, and on tip-toe, two armed men, 
both deeply disguised in great black beards, 
and in good clothes, stepped into this empty 
.little camn. Bending low, looking right, look- 



84 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

ing left, guns in hand and hand on trigger, 
they stopped in the centre of the little 
camp, and looked cautiously up, down, and 
all around. Seeing no one, hearing nothing, 
they looked in each others eyes, straight 
ened up, and, standing their guns against 
a tree, breathed more freely in the gray 
twilight. Wicked, beastly-looking men were 
they, as they stood there loosening their 
collars, taking in their breath as if they had 
just had a hard climb, and looking about 
cautiously; hard, cruel and cunning, they seemed 
as if they partook something of the ferocity 
of the wild beasts that prowled there at night. 

These two large animal-looking men were 
armed with pistols also. But at the belt of 
each hung and clanked and rattled something 
more terrible than any implement of death. 

These were manacles ! Irons ! Chains for 
human hands ! 

Did it never occur to you as a little remarka 
ble, that man only forges chains and manacles 
for his fellow-man? A cage will do for a 
wild beast, cattle are put in pens, bears in a 
pit, but man must be chained. Men carry 
these manacles with them only when they ?et 



MAN-HUNTEKS. 85 

out to take their fellow-man. These two men 
were man-hunters. 

Standing there, manacles in hand, half beast 
and half devil, they were in the employment 
of the United States. They were sent to take 
John Logan, Carrie and Johnny, to the Reser 
vation the place most hated, dreaded, ab 
horred of all earthly places, the Reservation! 
Back of these two men lay a deeper, a more 
damning motive for the capture of the girl 
than the United States was really responsible 
for; for the girl, as we have seen, was very 
beautiful. This rare wild flower had now 
almost matured in the hot summer sun just 
past. But remember, it was all being done in 
the name of and under the direction of, and, 
in fact, by, the United States Government. 

To say nothing of the desire of agents and 
their deputies to capture and possess beautiful 
girls, it is very important to any Indian 
agent that each victim, even though he be 
half or three-quarters, or even entirely, white, 
be kept on the Reservation; for every captive 
is so much money in the hands of the Indian 
agent. He must have Indians, as said before, 
to report to the Government in order to draw 



86 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

blankets, provisions, clothes, and farming 
utensils for them. True, the Indians do not 
get a tithe of these things, but he must be on 
the Reservation roll-call in order that the 
agent may draw them in his name. 

This agency had become remarkably thin 
of Indians. The mountain Indians, accus 
tomed to pure water and fresh air, could not 
live long in the hot, fever-stricken valley. 
They died by hundreds. And then, as if 
utterly regardless of the profits of the agents 
of the Reservation, they hung themselves in 
their prison-pens, with their own chains. 
Two, father and son, killed themselves with 
the same knife one night while chained to 
gether. 

There was just a little bit of the old Roman 
in these liberty-loving natures, it seemed to 
me. See the father giving himself the death- 
wound, and then handing the knife to his son! 
The two chained apart, but still able to grasp 
each other s hands ; grasping hands and dy 
ing so ! Very antique that, it seems to me, in 
its savage valor love of liberty, and lofty con 
tempt of death. But then it was only Indians, 
and happened so recently. 



MAN-HUNTERS. 87 

It is true, Gar Dosson wanted revenge and 
the girl ; and the two men wanted the little 
farm. Yet do not forget that back of all this 
lay that granite and immovable mountain of 
fact, that other propelling principle to compel 
them on to the hunt, the order, the sanction 
the gold of the government. Let it be told 
with bowed head, with eyes to the ground, and 
cheeks crimson with shame ! Think of one of 
these hunted human beings a beautiful young 
girl, just at that sweet and tender, almost holy 
period of life, the verge of womanhood, when 
every man of the land should start up with a 
noble impulse to throw the arm of protection 
about her ! 

"Shoo! they must be close about," began 
the shorter of the two ruffians, reaching back 
for his gun, as if he had heard something. 

"No. Did n t you see that squirrel shuck 
ing a hazel nut on that rock there, just afore 
we came in?" said the other. 

"A bushy-tailed gray? Yes, seed him 
scamper up a saplin." 

" Wai, don t you know that if they had a 
bin hereabouts, a squirrel wouldn t a sot down 
there to shuck a nut?" 



88 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"Eight! You ve been among Injins so 
long that you know more about them than 
they do themselves." 

" Wai, what I don t know about an Injin 
no one don t know. They ve gone for grub, 
and will come back at sun-down." 

"Come back here at sun-down?" 

"Don t you see the skins there? Whar 
kin they sleep? They ll come afore dark, for 
even an Injin can t climb these rocks after 
dark. And when the gal s in camp, and that 
feller fixed eh? eh?" And he tapped and 
rattled the manacles. 

"Eh? eh? old Toppy?" and the two men 
poked each other in the ribs, and looked the 
very villians that they were. 

"But let s see what they Ve got here. Two 
tiger-skins, an old moccasin and a tomahawk ;" 
he looked at the handle and read the name, 
JOHN LOGAN; "Guess I ll hide that," said the 
agent, as he kicked the skins about, and then 
stuck the tomahawk up under his belt. 
" Guess that s about all." 

" Guess that s about all!" sneered the oth 
er; "that s about all you know about Injuns. 
Allers got your nose to the ground, too. Look 



MAN-HUNTERS. 89 

here ! " And the man, who had been walk 
ing about and looking up in the trees, here 
drew down a bundle from the boughs of a fir. 

" Well, I 11 swar ! ef you can t find things 
where a coon dog could n t! " 

"Find things ! " exclaimed the other, as he 
prepared to examine the contents of the bun 
dle ; " all you ve got to do is to look into a fir- 
tree in an Injun s camp. You see, bugs and 
things won t climb a fir gum ; nothing but a 
red-bellied squirrel will go up a fir gum, for 
fear of sticking in the wax ; and even a squir 
rel won t, if there is a string tied around, for 
fear of a trap. Wai, there is the string. So 
you see an Injun s cache is as safe up a fir- 
tree as under lock and key. Ah, they re 
awful short of grub. Look thar ! Been gnaw 
ing that bone, and they Ve put that away for 
their suppers, I swar ! " 

" Wai, the grub is short, eh ? They 11 be 
rather thin, I m thinking." 

The other did not notice this remark, but 
throwing the bundle aside, he rose up and went 
back to the tree. 

"By the beardy Moses! Look thar!" and 



90 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

the man looked about as if half frightened, 
and then held up a bottle. 

"Whisky?" asked the othor, springing 
eagerly forward. 

" No," answered the man, contemptuously, 
after smelling the bottle. 

"Water, eh?" queried the other, with dis 
gust. 

"Wine! And look here. Do you know 
what that means? It means a white man! 
Yes, it does. No Injin ever left a cork in a 
bottle. Now, you look sharp. There will be 
a white man to tackle." 

" Wai, I guess he won t be much of a white 
man, or he d have whisky." 

" Shoo ! I heard a bird fly down the can 
yon. Somebody s a comin up thar." 

" We better git, eh ? " said the other, getting 
his gun ; " lay for em." 

"Lay low and watch our chance. Maybe 
we ll come in on em friendly like, if there s 
white men. We re cattle men, you know; 
men hunting cattle," says the other, getting 
his gun and leading off behind the crags in 
the rear. " Leave me to do the talking. I ll 
tell a thing, and you ll swear to it. Wait, let s 



MA^-HUNTERS. 91 

see," and he approaches the edge of the rocks, 
and, leaning over, looked below. 

" See em ? " 

"Shoo! Look down there. The gal! 
She s a fawn. She s as pretty as a tiger-lily. 
Ah, my beauty! " 

The other man stood up, shook his head 
thoughtfully, and seemed to hesitate. The 
watcher still kept peering down; then he 
turned and said: "The white man is old For 
ty-nine. He comes a bobbin and a limpin 
along with a keg on his back, and a climbin 
up the mountain sidewise, like a crab." 

" Whoop ! I have it. It s wine, and they ll 
get drunk. Forty-nine will get drunk, don t 
you see, and then?" 

" You re a wise un ! Shake ! " And they 
grasped hands. 

"You bet! Now this is the little game. 
The gal and Logan, and the boy, will get here 
long first. Well, now, maybe we will go for 
the gal and the boy. But if we don t, we just 
lay low till all get sot down, and at that keg 
the old man s got, and then we just come in. 
Cattle-men, back in the mountains, eh ? " 

"That s the game. But here they come! 



92 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

Shoo!" and with his finger to his lip the 
leader stole behind the rocks, both looking 
back over their shoulders, as Carrie entered 
the camp. 

Her pretty face was flushed from exertion, 
and brown as a berry where not protected by 
the shock of black hair. She swung a broad 
straw hat in her hand, and tossed her head as 
if she had never worn and never would wear 
any other covering for it than that so bounti 
fully supplied by nature. She danced gaily, 
and swung her hat as she flew about the little 
camp, and called at her chubby cherub of a 
brother over her shoulder. At last, puffing 
and blowing, and wiping his forehead, he en 
tered camp and threw himself on one of the 
rocks. 

" Why, you ain t tired, are you Johnny ? " 

"Oh, oh, oh, no, I I I ain t tired a 
bit ! " and he wiped his brow, and puffed and 
bio wed, in spite of all his efforts to restrain 
himself. 

"Why you like to climb the mountains, 
Johnny. Don t you know you said you 
liked to climb the mountains better than to 
eat?" 



MAN-HUNTERS. 93 

"Oh, yes, yes I I like to climb a mount 
ain. That is, I like to climb one mountain at 
a time. But when there are two or three 
mountains all piled up on top of one another, 
Oh, oh, oh ! " 

" Oh, Johnny ! You to go to bragging 
about climbing mountains ! You can t climb 
mountains!" And again the girl, with 
shoes that would hardly hold together, a dress 
in ribbons, and a face not unfamiliar with 
the dirt of the earth, danced back and forth 
before him and sung snatches of a mountain 
song. " Oh, I m so happy up here, Johnny. 
I always sing like a bird up here." Then, 
looking in his face, she saw that he was very 
thoughtful ; and stepping back, and then 
forward, she said : " Why, what makes you 
so serious ? They won t never come up here, 
will they, Johnny? Not even if somebody 
at the Reservation wanted me awful bad, and 
somebody gave somebody lots of money to 
take me back, they could n t never come up 
here, could they, Johnny ? " And the girl 
looked eagerly about. 

"Oh, no, Carrie, you are safe here. Why, 
you are as safe here as in a fort." 



94 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

" This mountain is God s fort, John Logan 
says, Johnny. It is for the eagles to live in 
and the free people to fly to ; for my people to 
climb up out of danger and talk to the Great 
Spirit that inhabits it." The girl clasped her 
1 lands and looked up reverently as she said 
this. "But come, now, Johnny, don t be seri 
ous, and I will sing you the nicest song I 
know till Forty-nine comes up the mountain ; 
and I will dance for you, Johnny, and I will 
do all that a little girl can do to make you 
glad and happy as I am, Johnny." 

Here John Logan came up the hill, and the 
girl stopped and said, very seriously, 

" And you are right sure, John Logan, no 
body will get after us again ? nobody follow 
us away up here, jam up, nearly against Hea 
ven ? " 

Here the two men looked out. 

" No, Carrie, nobody will ever climb this 
high for you, nobody, except somebody that 
loves you very much, and loves you very 
truly." 

"Injins might, but white men won t, I 
guess; too stiff in the jints!" 

And again the girl whirled and danced 



MAN-HUNTERS. 95 

about, as if she had not heard one word he 
said. Yet she had heard every word, and 
heeded, too, for her eyes sparkled, and she 
danced even lighter than before ; for her 
heart was light, and the wretched little out 
cast was for a rare thing in her miserable 
life very, very happy. 

"I ain t stiff in the jints, am I, Johnny?" 
and she tapped her ankles. 

"Carrie, sing me that other song of yours, 
and that will make my heart lighter," said 
Johnny. 

" Why, Johnny, we haven t even got the 
clouds to overshadow us here ; we re above 
the clouds, and everything else. But I ll sing 
for you if I can only make you glad as you 
was before they got after us." And throwing 
back her hair and twisting herself about, 
looking back over her shoulder and laughing, 
looking down at her ragged feet, and making 
faces, she began. 

Like the song of a bird, her voice rang out 
on the coming night ; for it was now full twi 
light, and the leaves quivered overhead ; and 
far up and down the mountains the melody 
floated in a strange, sweet strain, and with a 



96 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

touch of tenderness that moved her compan 
ions to tears. Logan stood aside, looking 
down for Forty-nine a moment, then went to 
bring wood for the fire. 

As her song ended, Carrie turned to the 
boy ; but in doing so her eyes rested on the 
empty bottle left by the side of a stone spread 
with a tiger skin, by the two men. The boy 
had his head down, as if still listening, and 
did not observe her. She stopped suddenly, 
started back, looked to see if observed by her 
brother, and seeing that he was still absorbed 
she advanced, took up the bottle and held it 
up, glancing back and up the tree. 

"Somebody s been here! Somebody s been 
here, and it s been white men; the bottle s 
empty." 

She hastily hid the bottle, and stepping 
back and looking up where her little store had 
been hidden, she only put her finger to her 
lip, shook her head on seeing what had hap 
pened, and then went and stood by her little 
brother. Very thoughtful and full of care 
was she now. All her merriment had gone. 
She stood there as one suddenly grown old. 

"Oh, thank you, Carrie. It s a pretty 



MAN-HUNTERS. 97 

song. But what can keep Forty-nine so 
long?" 

The boy rose as he said this, and turning 
aside looked down the mountain into the gath 
ering darkness. The girl stood close beside 
him, as if afraid. 

" He is coming. Far down, I hear Forty- 
nine s boots on the bowlders." 

" Oh, I m so glad! And I m so glad he s 
got pistols! " said the girl, eagerly. The two 
men, who had stepped out, looked at each 
other as she said this and made signs. 

" Why, Carrie, are you afraid here ! You 
are all of a tremble!" said the boy, as she 
clung close to him, when they turned back. 

"Johnny," said the girl eagerly, almost 
wildly, as she looked around, " if men were 
to come to take us to that Reservation, what 
would you do? " 

"What would I do? I would kill em! 
Kill em dead, Carrie. I would hold you to 
my heart so, with this arm, and with this I 
would draw my pistol so, and kill em dead/ 

The two heads of the man-hunters disap 
peared behind the rocks. The boy pushed 
7 



98 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

back the girl s black, tumbled stream of hair 
from her brow, and kissing her very tenderly, 
he went aside and sat down ; for he was very, 
very weary. 

A twilight squirrel stole out from the thick 
et into the clearing and then darted back 
as if it saw something only partly concealed 
beyond. The two children saw this, and 
looked at each other half alarmed. Then the 
girl, as if to calm the boy who had grown 
almost a man in the past few weeks began 
to talk and chatter as if she had seen nothing, 
suspected nothing. 

" When the Winter comes, Johnny, we 
can t stay here ; we would starve." 

" Carrie, do the birds starve ? Do the 
squirrels starve? What did God make us 
for if we are to starve? " 

All this time the two men had been stealing 
out from their hiding-place, as if resolved to 
pounce upon and seize the girl before Forty- 
nine arrived. The leader had signaled and 
made signs to his companion back there in the 
gloaming, for they dared not speak lest they 
should be heard; and now they advanced 
stealthily, guns in hand, and now they fell 



MAN-HUNTERS. 99 

back to wait a better chance; and just as they 
were about to spring upon the two from be 
hind, the snowy white head of old Forty-nine 
blossomed above the rocks, and his red face, 
like a great opening flower, beamed in upon 
the little party, while the good-natured old 
man puffed and blowed as he fanned himself 
with his hat and sat down his keg of provis 
ions. And still he puffed and blowed, as if 
he would never again be able to get his breath. 
The two men stole back. 

" And Forty-nine likes to climb the moun 
tains too, don t he? Good for his health. 
See, what a color he s got ! And see how fat 
he is! Good for your health, ain t it, papa 
Forty-nine ? " 

But the good old miner was too hot and 
puny to answer, as the merry little girl danced 
with delight around him. 

" Why, it makes you blow, don t it? Strange 
how a little hill like that could make a man 
blow," said Johnny, winking at Carrie. 

But old Forty-nine only drew a long, thin 
wild flower through his hand, and looked up 
now and then to the girl. He beckoned her 



100 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

to approach, and she came dancing across to 
where he sat. 

" It s a sad looking flower, and it s a small 
one. But, my girl, the smallest flower is a 
miracle. And, Carrie, sometimes the sweetest 
flowers grows closest to the ground." 

The man handed her the flower, and was 
again silent. His face had for a moment been 
almost beautiful. Here Logan came up with 
a little wood. 

" Oh, John Logan, what a pretty flower for 
your button-hole! " and the fond girl bounded 
across and eagerly placed it in the young 
man s breast. 

The old man on the keg saw this, and his 
face grew dark. His hands twisted nervously, 
and he could hardly keep his seat on his keg. 
Then he hitched up his pants right and left, 
sat down more resolutely on the keg than be 
fore, but said nothing for a long time. 

At last the old man hitched about on his 
keg, and said sharply, over his shoulder : " I 
saw a track, a boot-track, coming up. On the 
watch, there ! " 

The others looked about as if alarmed. It 
was now dark. Suddenly the two men ap- 



MAN-HUNTEKS. 101 

peared, looking right and left, and smiling 
villainously. They came as if they had fol 
lowed Forty-nine, and not from behind the 
rocks, where they had been secreted. 

" Good evenin , sir! good evenin , sir ! Go 
ing to rain, eh? Heard it thunder, and 
thought best to get shelter. Cattle-men we re 
cattle-men, pard and I. Seed your camp- 
fire, and as it was thunderin, we came right 
in. All right, boss? All right, eh? All 
right ? " And the man, cap in hand, bowed 
from one to the other, as not knowing who 
was the leader, or whom he should address. 

" All right," answered Logan. " You re 
very welcome. Stand your guns there. You re 
as welcome under these trees as the birds eh, 
Forty-nine ? " 

But Forty-nine was now silent and thought 
ful. He was still breathless, and he only 
puffed and blowed his answer, and sat down 
on his keg again with all his might. 

"You must be hungry," said the girl 
kindly, approaching the men. 

"Heaps of provisions," puffed Forty-nine, 
and again he half arose and then sat down on 



102 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

his keg, tighter and harder, if possible, tban 
before. 

:( Thank you, gents, tbank you. It s hun 
gry we are eh, pard ? " 

"We ll have a spread right off/ answered 
the good hearted Logan, now spreading a rock, 
which served for a table, with the food ; when 
he observed the two men look at the girl and 
make signs. He looked straight and hard at 
the man-hunters for a moment, and seeing them 
exchange glances and nod their ill-looking 
heads at each other he suddenly dropped his 
handful of things and started forward. He 
caught the leader by the shoulder, and whirl 
ing him about as he stood there with his com 
panion leering at the girl, he cried out: 

"Hunting cattle, are you? What s your 
brand ? What s the brand of your cattle, I 
say ? I know every brand in Shasta. Now 
what is your brand?" 

Johnny had strode up angrily toward the 
two men, and followed them up as they re 
treated. Old Forty-nine, who now was on the 
alert, and had his sleeves rolled up almost to 
his elbows from the first, had not been indif 
ferent, but was reaching his tremendous fist 



MAN-HUNTERS. 103 

towards the retreating nose of Dosson. Yet 
it was too dark to distinguish friend from foe. 

" Why, we are not rich men, stranger. We 
are poor men, and have but few cattle, and so, 
so we have no brand eh ? pardner eh ? r 

" No. We got no brand. Poor men, poor 



men. 1 



"We are poor men, with a few cattle that 
have gone astray. We are hungry, tired poor 
men, that have lost their way in the night. 
Poor men that s hungry, and now you want 
to drive us out into the storm." 

"Oh, Forty-nine, John Logan, they re 
poor hungry men!" interposed Carrie. 

"There, there s my hand!" cried impulsive, 
honest old Forty-nine. "That s enough. 
You re hungry. Sit down there. And quick, 
Carrie, pour us the California wine. Here s 
a gourd, there s a yeast powder can, and there s 
a tin cup. Thank you. Here s to you. Ah, 
that sets a fellow all right. It warms the 
heart ; and, I beg your pardon it s mean to 
be suspicious. Here, fill us up again. Ah, 
that s gone just to the spot ! Eh, fellows ?" 

" To the right spot! Keep him a drinkin , 



104 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

and the others, too," whispered Dosson to 
Emens. 

"That s the game! " And the two villains 
winked at each other, and slapped Forty-nine 
on the back, and laughed, and pretended to 
be the best friend he had in the world. 

The two men now sat at the table, and 
Carrie and Johnny bustled about and helped 
them as they ate and drank. Meantime Logan 
went for more wood to make a light. 

u And here s the bread, and here s the 
meat, and and that s about all there is," 
said the girl at last. Then she stood by and 
with alarm saw the men swallow the last 
mouthful, and feel about over the table and 
look up to her for more in the dark. 
"All there is? All gone?" 
"Yes, and to-morrow, Johnny?" 
"To-morrow, Carrie? " called out Forty-nine, 
who was now almost drunk : "We ve had a 
good supper, let to-morrow take care of itself. 
Eh! Let to-morrow take care of itself! That s 
my motto hie divide the troubles of the year 
up into three hundred and sixty-five parts, and 
take the pieces one at a time. Live one day 
at a time. That s my philosophy." And the 



MAN-HUNTERS. 105 

poor old man, Forty-nine, held his hat high 
in the air, and began to hiccough and hold his 
neck unsteadily. 

The girl saw this with alarm. As if by ac 
cident she placed herself between the men and 
their guns. Meantime, the two men were try 
ing in vain to get at the pistols of Forty-nine. 
They would almost succeed, and then, just as 
they were about to get hold of them, the 
drunken man would roll over to the other side 
or change position. All the time Carrie kept 
wishing so devoutly that Logan would come. 

"Take a drink," said one of the men to the 
girl, reaching out his cup, after glancing at his 
companion. But the girl only shook her 
head, and stepped further back. "Thought 
you said she was civilized?" "She, she is 
civilized; but isn t quite civilized enough 
to get drunk yet," hiccoughed Forty-nine, as 
he battered his tin-cup on the table, and again 
foiled the hand just reached for his pistol. 
The boy saw this, and stole back through the 
dark behind his sister. To remove the cap 
and touch his tongue to the tubes of the guns 
was the work only of a second, and again he 
was back by the side of the men. Eagerly all 



108 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

the time the girl kept looking over her should- 
ers^into the dark, deep woods, for Logan. The 
thunder rolled, and it began to grow very 
dark. She went up to Forty-nine, on pretense 
of helping him to more wine, and whispered 
sharply in his ear. 

The old man only stared at her in helpless 
wonder. His head rolled from one side .to the 
other like that of an idiot. His wits were ut 
terly under water. 

And now, as the darkness thickened and the 
men s actions could hardly be observed, one of 
them pushed the drunken man over, clutched 
his pistols, and the two sprang up together. 

"I ve got em, Gar," cried Emens, and the 
two started back for their guns. The girl 
stood in the way, and Dosson threw his mas 
sive body upon her and bore her to the earth, 
while the other, awkwardly holding the two 
pistols in one hand, groped in the dark for 
their guns. 

The storm began to beat terribly. The 
mountains fairly trembled from the roll 
ing thunder. As the man was about to clutch 
the guns, he felt rather than saw that a 
tall figure stood between. That instant a flash 



MAN -HUNTERS. 107 

of lightning showed John Logan standing 
there, the boy by his side, and two ugly pistols 
thrust forward. The man-hunters were un 
masked in the fiery light of heaven, and 
Logan knew them for the first time. 

" I will not kill you." He said this with 
look and action that was grand and terrible. 
" Take your guns and go! Out into the 
storm ! If God can spare you, I can spare you. 
Go!" 

And by the lightning s light, the two men, 
with two ugly pistol-nozzles in their faces, 
took their guns and groped and backed down 
the mountain into the darkness, where they 
belonged. 



OHAPTEK IY. 

THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 

"For the Right! as God has given 
Man to see the Maiden Eight ! " 
For the Right, through thickest night, 

Till the man-brute Wrong be driven 
From high places; till the Right 
Shall lift like some grand beacon light. 

For the Right I Love, Right and duty; 
Lift the world up, though you fall 
Heaped with dead before the wall; 
God can find a soul of beauty 

Where it falls, as gems of worth 
Are found by miners dark in earth. 

OLD FORTY-NINE had not cast his life and 
lot with John Logan at all. Yet this singular 
and contradictory old man stood ready to lay 
down bis seemingly worthless life at a mo 
ment s notice for this boy whom he had almost 
brought up from childhood. But he was not 
living with him in the mountains. He had 
(108) 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 109 

done all he could to protect him, to shelter and 
feed him, all the time. But now the pursuit 
was so hot and desperate that the old man, in 
his sober moments rare enough, I admit be 
gan to doubt if it would be possible to save this 
young man much longer from the clutches of 
the Agents. Indeed, it was only by the sweet 
persuasion of Carrie that he had this time been 
induced to go with her and Johnny up on the 
spur of the mountain, and there meet John 
Logan with some provisions. From there he 
was persuaded to go with him to his hiding- 
place, high up the mountain, where we left 
him in the last chapter. 

But the poor old man s head was soon under 
water again, as we have seen. That keg of 
California wine and the few bits of bread and 
meat, which so suddenly disappeared in the 
hands of Dosson and Emens, were all he hap 
pened to have in the cabin when the two chil 
dren came in at dusk. But these he had 
snatched up at once and ran with them to 
Logan. 

But the next morning, when his head was 
once more above water, and he had been told 
all that had happened, he pulled his long 



110 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

white beard to the right and to left, and at last 
rose up and took the two children and led them 
back down the steep and stupendous mountain 
to his cabin. He knew that John Logan was 
now a doomed man. Had he been alone, had 
there been no one but himself and this hunted 
man, he would have stayed by his side. As it 
was, it made the old man a year older to decide. 
And it was like tearing his heart out by the 
roots, when he rose up, choking with agony, 
grasped Logan s hand, bade him farewell, and 
led the children hurriedly away. Once, twice, 
the old man stopped and turned suddenly 
about, and looked sharply and almost savagely 
up the mountains, as if to return. And then, 
each time he sighed, shook his head, and hur 
ried on down the hill. He held tightly on to 
the little brown hands of the children, as if lie 
feared that they, too, like himself, might let 
their better natures master them, and so turn 
back and join the desolate and hunted man. 

That evening, after the old man had re 
turned from his tunnel, and while he prepared 
a meager meal from a few potatoes and a heel 
of bacon found back in the corner of a shelf, 
and so hard that even the wood-rats had re- 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER.. Ill 

fused to eat it, a passing fellow-miner put his 
heavy head and shoulders in at the half open 
cabin and shouted out that a barn had been 
burned in the valley, a house fired into, and 
the tomahawk of John Logan found hard by. 
The children glanced at each other by the low 
fire-light. But old Forty-nine only went on 
with his work as the head withdrew and passed 
on, but he said never a word. He was very 
thoughtful all the evening. He was now per 
fectly certain that his course had been the wise 
one, the only prudent one in fact. Logan he 
knew was now beyond help. He must use all 
his art and address to keep the children from 
further peril. He made them promise to re 
main in his cabin, to never attempt to reach 
Logan. He told them that their presence 
with him would only greatly embarrass him 
in his flight ; that they might be followed if 
they attempted to reach him, and that he and 
they would then be taken and sent to the Res 
ervation together. But he told them further 
and their black eyes flashed like fire as he 
spoke in a voice tremulous with emotion and 
earnestness that if ever Logan came to that 
cabin hungry, or for help of any kind, they 



112 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

should help him with every means in their 
power. 

And so the old man went back to work in 
his tunnel ; and as the autumn wore away and 
winter drew on, the children kept close about 
the little old cabin, waiting, waiting, waiting ; 
looking up toward the now white, cold moun 
tain, yet obeying Forty-nine to the letter. 

Meantime the man-hunt went on ; although 
the children knew nothing for a long lime of 
the deadly energy with which it was con 
ducted. 

What a strange place for two bright, bud 
ding children was this old, old cabin, with its 
old, old man, and its dark and miserable inte 
rior! How people shunned the lonely old 
place, and how it sank down into the earth 
and among the weeds and willows, and long 
strong yellow tangled grass, as if it wanted to 
be shunned ! 

On a dirty old shelf near the fire-place lay 
a torn and tattered book. It was thumbed 
and thrumbed all to pieces from long and 
patient use. When the wind blew through 
the chinks of the cabin, this old book seemed 
to have life. It fluttered there like a wounded 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 113 

bird. Its leaves literally whispered. This 
old book was a Bible. 

More houses had been burned in the little 
valley, and the crime laid to John Logan. 
He had now been proclaimed an outlaw in 
effect by every settler. Those two men had 
made him so odious that many settlers had 
vowed to shoot him on sight. Dosson at last 
went before a magistrate and swore that John 
Logan had shot at him while in the perform 
ance of his duty as a sub-agent of the Reser 
vation. By this means he procured a warrant 
for his arrest by the civil authorities, to be 
placed in the hands of the newly elected 
sheriff of the newly organized and sparsely 
settled country. Things looked desperate in 
deed. To add to the agony of the crisis, a 
sharp and bitter winter now wrapped the whole 
world in snow and ice. It was no longer pos 
sible for any one to subsist in the mountains, 
or survive at all without fire and fire-arms. 
These the hunted man did not dare use. They 
were witnesses that would betray his presence, 
and must not be thought of. 

All this time the old man and the children 
8 



114 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

could do nothing. The children hovered over 
the fire in the wretched old cabin. And what 
a cold, cheerless place it was ! 

But if the interior of this old cabin was 
gloomy, that of the old tunnel was simply ter 
rible. Yet in this dark and dreadful place the 
old man had spent nearly a quarter of a cen 
tury. 

I wonder if the glad, gay world knows 
where it gets its gold ? Does that fair woman, 
or well-clad, well-fed man, know anything 
about the life of the gold-hunter? When the 
gold is brought to the light and given to the 
commerce of the world, we see it shining in the 
sun. It is now a part of the wealth of the na 
tion. But do not forget that every piece of 
gold you touch or see, or stand credited with 
at your bank, cost some brave man blood, life ! 

This old Forty-nine, years before, when the 
camp was young, had found a piece of gold- 
bearing quartz in .a ledge on the top of a high, 
sharp ridge, that pointed down into the canyon. 
This was before quartz mining had been 
thought of. But the shrewd, thoughtful man 
saw that from this source came all the gold in 
tlie placer. He could see that it was from this 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 115 

vein that all the fine gold in the camp had 
been fed. He resolved to strike at the foun 
tain head. It was by accident he had made 
his discovery. The high, sharp and narrow 
ridge was densely timbered, and now that the 
miners had settled in the canyon below, the 
annual fires would not be allowed to sweep 
over the country, and the woods would soon be 
almost impenetrable. So argued Forty-nine. 
For all his mind was bent on keeping his se 
cret till he could pierce the mountains from 
the canyon-level below, and strike the ledge in 
the heart of the great high-backed ridge, 
where he felt certain the gold must lay in great 
heaps and flakes and wedges. And so it was 
with a full heart and a strong arm that he 
had begun his low, dark tunnel all alone at 
the bottom of the ridge. 

He had begun his tunnel in a secluded place, 
under a tuft of dense wood, on the steep hill 
side. He made the mouth of the tunnel very 
low and narrow. At first he wheeled out the 
dirt in his wheelbarrow only when the water 
in the canyon was high enough to carry off 
the earth which he excavated. He worked 
very hard and kept very sober fora long time. 



116 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

Day after day he expected to strike the ledge. 
But day after day, week after week, month 
after month, stole away between his fingers, 
and still no sign of the ledge. A year went 
by. Then he struck a hard wall of granite. 
This required drills, fuse-powder, and all the 
appliance of the quarry. He had to stop work 
now and then and wash in the fast failing 
placers, to get money enough to continue his 
tunnel. Besides, he now could make only a 
few inches headway each week. Sometimes he 
would be a whole month making the length of 

his pick-handle. 

All this was discouraging. The man began 
to grow heart-sick. Who was there at home 
waiting and waiting all this time ? No one in 
the camp could say. In fact, no one in the 
camp knew any thing at all about this silent 
man, who seemed so superior to them all ; and as 
the camp knew nothing at all of the man, 
either his past or his present, as is usually the 
case, it made a history of its own for him. And 
you may be certain it was not at all compli 
mentary to this exclusive and silent man of 
the tunnel. 

Two, three, four, five years passed. The 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 117 

camp had declined ; miners had either gone 
back to the States, gone to new mines, or gone 
up on the little hill out of the canyon to rest 
together ; and yet this man held on to his tun 
nel. He was a little bit bent now from long 
stooping, waiting, toiling, and there were ugly 
crows-feet about his eyes eyes that had grown 
dim and blood-shot from the five years glare 
of the single candle in that tunnel. 

And the man was not so exclusive now. 
The tunnel was now no secret. It was spoken 
of now with derision, only to be laughed at. 

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten years! The man 
has grown old. He is bent and gray. But his 
faith, which the few remaining miners call a 
madness, is still unbroken. Yet it is not in 
human nature to endure all this agony of sus 
pense, all this hope deferred from day to day, 
week to week, month to month, year to year, 
and still be human. The man has, in some 
sense, become a brute. He now is seen to reel 
and totter to his cabin, late at night oftentimes. 
He has at last fallen into the habit of the 
camp. He can drink, gamble, carouse, as late 
as the latest. 

Now and then, it is true, he has his sober 



118 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

spells, and all the good of his great nature is 
to the surface. Now he takes up a map and 
diagram which is hidden under the broad stone 
of the hearth, and examines it, measures and 
makes calculations by the hour at night, when 
all the camp is, or ought to be, asleep. 

Maybe it is the placing and displacing of 
this great stone that has given rise to the story 
in the camp that the old man is not so poor 
as he pretends. Maybe some of the rough men 
who hang about the camp have watched him 
through the chink-holes in the wretched cabin 
some night, and decided that it is gold which 
he keeps concealed under the great hearth 
stone. 

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen 
years ! The man s hair is long and hangs in 
strings. It is growing gray, almost white. 
Some men have been trying to get into the 
bent old man s cabin at night to find the 
buried treasure. The old man s double-bar 
reled shot-gun has barked in their faces ; and 
there has been a thinly attended funeral. 
The camp is low, miserable. The tide is out. 
Wrecks of rockers, toms, sluices, flumes, der- 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTER. 119 

ricks, battered pans, torn-irons, cradles, old 
cabin, strew the sandy strand. 

This last act has left the old man utterly 
alone ; yet he is seen even more frequently 
than before at the " Deadfall." Is he trying 
to forget that man had died at his hand ? 

Now and then you see him leading a tawny 
boy about, and talking in a low, tender way of 
better things than his life and appearance 
would indicate. The man is still on the down 
grade. And yet how long he has been on this 
decline! One would say he should be at the 
bottom by this time. 

When we reflect how very far a man can 
fall, we can estimate something of the height 
in which he stands when fresh from his 
Maker s hand. 

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, 
twenty, twenty-one years ! The iron-gray 
hair is white as the snow on the mountain-tops 
that environ him. The tall man is bent as a 
tree is bent when the winter snow lies heavily 
on its branches. The tawny boy is grown a 
man now. This is John Logan, the fugitive. 
The two homeless children have long since 
taken his place. 



120 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

And still the pick clangs on in that dark, 
damp tunnel that is always dripping, dripping, 
dripping, where it looks out at the glaring 
day, as if in eternal tears for the wasted life 
within. Yet now there is hope. 

New life has been infused into this old camp 
of late years. The tide is flowing in. The 
placer mines have perished and passed into 
history. But there is a new industry dis 
covered. It is quartz mining the very thing 
that this old man has given his life to estab 
lish. And it is this that has kept the old man 
up, alive, for the past few years. He is now 
certain that he will strike it yet. 

Is there some one waiting still, far away? 
We do not know. He does not know now. 
Years and years ago, utterly discouraged, yet 
mechanically keeping on, he ceased to write. 

But now these two new lives here have ran 
into his. If he could only strike it now ! If 
he could only strike it for them ! 

It is mid- winter. The three are almost 
starving. Old Forty-nine has been prudent, 
cautious, careful of the two helpless waifs 
thrown into his hands. Could he, old, broken, 
destitute, friendless, stand up boldly between 



THE OLD GOLD-HUNTEK. 121 

the man-hunters and these children ? Impos 
sible. And so it is that Dosson and Emens 
are not strangers at the old man s cabin now, 
hateful as is their presence there to all. They 
are allowed to come and go. And Dosson pays 
court to Carrie. They ply the old man with 
drink. The poor, broken, brave old miner, 
still dreams and hopes that he will strike it 
yet and then! Sometimes he starts up in his 
sleep and strikes out with his bony hands as 
if to expel them from his cabin and keep 
Carrie safe, sacred, pure. Then he sinks 
back with a groan, and Carrie bends over him 
and her great eyes fill with tears. 



CHAPTEE V. 

THE CAPTURE. 

0, the mockery of pity ! 
Weep with fragrant handkerchief ^ 
In pompous luxury of grief ^ 
Selfish, hollow-hearted city? 

O these money-getting times ! 
Whats a heart for ? What s a hand. 
But to seize and shake the land. 
Till it tremble for its crimes f 

MIDNIGHT, and the mighty trees knock their 
naked arms together, and creak and cry wildly 
in the wind. In Forty-nine s cabin, by a flick 
ering log-fire, Carrie sits alone. The wind 
howls horribly, the door creaks, and the fire 
snaps wickedly ; the wind roars now the roar 
of a far-off sea, and now it smites the cabin in 
shocks, and sifts and shakes the snow through 
the shingle. The girl draws her tattered blan 
ket tighter about her, and sits a little closer to 
the fire. Now there is a sudden, savage gust 
(122) 



THE CAPTURE. 123 

of wind, wilder, fiercer than before, and a 
sneet of snow sifts in through a crack in the 
door, and dances over the floor. 

"What a storm!" exclaims the girl, as she 
rises up, looks about, and then takes the 
blanket from her shoulders and stuffs it in 
the crack by the door. 

She listens, looks about again, and then, 
going up to the little glass tacked beside the 
fire-place, carefully arranges her splendid hair 
that droops down over her shoulders in the 
careless, perfect fashion of Evangeline. 

"Heaven help any one who is out in this 
storm to-night!" 

Then she takes another stick from the cor 
ner and places it on the fire. 

"Forty-nine will be here soon, and Johnny; 
Johnny with news about him about poor 
John Logan." 

She shakes her head and clasps her hands. 

" It is nearly half a year since that night. 
They can t take him they dare not take him. 
They are hunting him hunting him in this 
storm hunting him as if he were a wild 
beast. He hides with the cattle in the sheds, 
with the very hogs in their pens. They come 



124 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

upon him there ; he starts from his sleep and 
dashes away, while they follow, and track him 
by the blood of his feet in the snow. Oh, 
how terrible it is ! I must not think of it ; I 
will go mad." 

She turns to the door and listens. She 
draws back the ragged curtains from the win 
dow and tries to look out into the storm. She 
can hear and see nothing, and she walks back 
again to the fire. " I must set them their sup 
per." As she says this, she goes to a little cup 
board and takes a piece of bread, puts it on a 
plate and sets it on the table. Then she 
places two plates and two cups of water. "They 
will be here soon, and they must have their 
suppers. Oh, that grocery!" She shudders as 
she says this. "And Johnny will bring me 
news of him of John Logan. What s that ? " 

She springs to the door, lifts the latch, and 
Stumps steals in, brushing the snow from his 
neck and shoulders. He has a club in his 
hand, and looks back and about him as he 
shuts the door. 

"Oh, sister, its awful! I tell you its too 
awful!" 

"Brother brother! What has happened? 



THE CAPTURE. 125 

What is awful? What is it, Johnny? And 
he, John Logan?" 

" He s been there ! " The boy shivers 
and points in a half-frightened manner to 
ward the little hill. "Yes, he has; he s 
been up on the hill by his mother s grave ; 
and he s been to Squire Field s house 
yes, he has; and he couldn t get in, for they 
had a big dog tied to the gate, and now they 
have got another dog tied to the gate. Yes, 
and they tracked him all around by the blood 
in the snow!" 

" Oh brother! don t, don t!" 

"Don t be afraid, sister; he has gone away 
now. Oh, if he would only go away and stay 
away far away, and they couldn t catch him, 
I d be just as glad as I could be! Yes, I 
would; so help me, I would." 

"And he has been up there, and in this 
storm!" 

She speaks this to herself, as she goes to the 
window and attempts to look out. 

"Poor, poor John Logan!" sighs the boy. 
"I wish his mother was alive; I do, so help 
me. She was a good woman, she was; she 
didn t sick Bose on me, she didn t." 



126 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

As the boy says this he stands his club in 
the corner, and looks with his sister for a mo 
ment sadly into the fire, and then suddenly 
says: 

"I m hungry. Sister, ain t you got some 
thing to eat. Forty-nine, he s down to the 
grocery, and Phin Emens he s down to the 
grocery, too, and he swears awfully about John 
Logan, and he says it s the Injun that s in 
him that makes him so bad. Do you think 
it s the Injun that s in him, sister?" 

As the boy says this, the girl turns silently 
to the little table and pushes it toward him. 

"There, Johnny, that s all there is. You 
must leave some for Forty-nine." 

" Poor, poor John Logan ! " 

He eats greedily for a moment, then stops 
suddenly and looks into the fire. 

Carrie, also looking into the fire, murmurs : 

" And Sylvia Fields let them tie a dog there 
to keep him away ! I would have killed that 
dog first. If John Logan should come here, 
I would open that door I would open that 
door to him ! " There is a dark and terrified 
face at the window " And I would give him 



THE CAPTURE. 127 

bread to eat, and let him sit by tliis fire and 
get warm !" 

" And I would, too so help me, I would!" 
The boy pushes back his bread, and rises and 
goes up to his sister. " Yes, I would. I don t 
care what Phin Emens, or anybody says; for 
his mother didn t sick Bose at me, she 
didn t!" 

The pale and pitiful face at the window 
begins to brighten. There is snow in the long 
matted black locks that fall to his shoulders. 
For nearly half a year this man has fled from 
his fellow-man, a hunted grizzly, a hunted 
tiger of the jungle. 

What wonder that his step is stealthy as he 
lifts the latch and enters ? What wonder that 
his eyes have an uncommon glare as he looks 
around, looks back over his shoulder as he 
shuts the door noiselessly behind him ? What 
wonder that his clothes hang in shreds about 
him, and his feet and legs are bound in thongs ; 
that his arms are almost bare; that his blood 
less face is half hidden in black and shaggy 
beard? 

" Carrie, I have come to you. Yours is the 
only door that will open to me now." 



128 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"John Logan!" She starts; the boy, too, 
utters a low, stifled cry. Then they draw near 
the miserable man. For they are bred of the 
woods, and have nerves of iron, and they know 
the need and the power of silence, too. 

" Inhere, John Logan?" Carrie whispers, 
with a shudder. 

"Ay, I am here starving, dying!/ 

The boy takes up the bread he had dropped, 
and places it on the table before Logan. The 
hunted outcast sits down wearily and begins 
to eat with the greediness of a starved beast. 
The girl timidly brushes the snow from his 
hair, and takes a pin from her breast and 
begins to pin up a great rent in his shirt that 
shows his naked shoulder. 

The boy is glad and full of heart, and of 
indescribable delight that he has given his 
bread to the starving man. He stands up, 
brightly, with his back to the fire for a mo 
ment, and then goes back and brushes off the 
snow from the man s matted hair, then back 
to the fire. 

" I m awful glad to see you eat, Mr. John 
Logan/ says Stumps ; " I wish there was 
more, I do," and he rocks on his foot and 



THE CAPTURE. 129 

wags his head from shoulder to shoulder glee 
fully. "It ain t much it ain t much, Mr. 
John Logan ; but it is all there is." 

"All there is, and they were eating it." 
The man says this aside to himself, and he 
hides his face for a moment, as if he would 
conceal a tear. Then, after a time he seems 
to recover himself, and he lays the bread down 
on the table, tenderly, silently, carefully in 
deed, as if it were the most delicate and prec 
ious thing on earth. Then, lifting his face, 
looks at them with an effort to be cheerful, 
and says: 

" I I forgot ; I I am not hungry. I have 
had my dinner. I I, oh yes; I have been 
eating a great deal. Oh, no, no, no; I m not 
hungry not hungry!" 

As the man says this he rises and stands 
between the others at the fire. He puts his 
hands over their heads, and looks alternately 
in their uplifted faces. There is a long silence. 
" Carrie, they have tied a dog to that door, 
over yonder." 

" There is no dog tied to this door, John 
Logan." 
9 



130 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

Low and tender with love, yet very firm and 
earnest is her voice. And her eyes are lifted 
to his. He looks down into her soul, and 
there is an understanding between them. 
There is a conversation of the eyes too refined 
for words ; too subtle, too sweet, too swift for 
words. 

They stand together but a moment there, 
soul flowing into soul and tiding forth, and to 
and fro ; but it was as if they had talked to 
gether for hours. He leans his head, kisses 
her lifted and unresisting lips, and says, " God 
bless you," and that is all. 

It is her first kiss, the imprint, the mint- 
mark on this virgin gold. This maiden of a 
moment since, is a woman now. 

"Do you know that they are after you?" 
The girl says this in a sort of wild whisper, 
as she looks toward the door. 

" Do I know that they are after me? Father 
in Heaven, who should know it better than I?" 
The man throws up his arms, and totters back 
and falls into a seat from very weakness. "Do 
I know that they are after me ? For more 
than half a year I have fled ; night and day, 
and day and night I have fled, hidden away . 



THE CAPTURE. 131 

starting up at midnight from down among the 
cattle, where I had crept to keep warm; and 
then on, on and on, out into the snow, the 
storm, over the frozen ground, to the deep 
canyon and dark woods, where, naked and 
bleeding, I disputed with the bear for his bed 
in the hollow tree." 

The boy springs to the door. Is it the 
storm that is tugging and rattling at the 
latch? 

But the girl seems to see, to heed, to hear 
only John Logan. She clutches his hand in 
both her own and covers it with kisses and 
with tears. 

"John Logan, I pity you! I I "she 
had almost said, "I love you " 

"Thank Heaven! Thank Heaven for one 
true heart, and one true hand when all the 
world is against me! Carrie, I could die now 
content. The bitterness of my heart passes 
away, and the wild, mad nature that made me 
an Ishmaelite, with every man s hand against 
me, and my hand against all, is gone. I am 
another being. I could die now content;" 
and he bows his head. 

" But you must not, you shall not die ! You 



132 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

must go go far away ; why hover about this 
place?" 

" I do not know. But yonder lies the only 
being who ever befriended me ; and somehow 
I get lonesome when I get far away from her 
grave. And I go round and round, like the 
sun around the world, and come back to where 
I started from." 

" But you must go go far away go now." 

"Do you know what you are saying? I 
was never outside of this. All would be strange. 
I would be lost, lost there. And then, do you 
not imagine they are waiting for me there 
everywhere? Look at my face! This tinge 
of Indian blood, that all men abhor and fear, 
and call treacherous and bloody. Across my 
brow at my birth was drawn a brand that marks 
me forever a brand a brand as if it were the 
brand of Cain." 

The man bows his head, and turns away. 

Slowly and timidly Carrie approaches him, 
and she lays her hand on his arm and looks 
in his face. The boy still watches by the 
door. 

" But you will fly from here ? " 

His arm drops over her hair, down to her 



THE CAPTURE. 133 

shoulder, and he draws her to his breast, as 
she looks up tenderly in his face, and pleads: 

"You will go now at once ? For you will 
die here." 

" Ah, I will die here." He says this with a 
calm and dogged determination. "Carrie, I 
have one wish, one request only one. I know 
you are weak and helpless yourself, and can t 
do much, and I ought not to ask you to do 
anything." 

Stumps has left the door as he hears the man 
mention that there is something to be done, 
and stands by their side. 

" Whatever it is you ask, John Logan, we 
will do it we will do it." 

The girl says this with a firmness that con 
vinces him that it will be done. 

" We will do it ! we will do it ! so help me, 
we will do it ! " blubbers Stumps. 

" What is it, John Logan, we can do?" 

" I will not fly from here." He looks down 
tenderly into their faces. Then he lifts his 
face. It is dark and terrible, and his lips are 
set with resolution. " I will die here. It may 
be to-night, it may be to-morrow. It may be 
as I turn to go out at that door they will send 



134 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

their bullets through my heart ; it may be 
while I kneel in the snow at my mother s 
grave. But, sooner or later, it will come it 
will come ! " 

" But please, John Logan, what is it we can 
do?" 

Her voice is tremulous, and her eyes stream 
with tears. 

" Carrie, I am a man a strong man and 
ought not to ask anything of a helpless girl. 
But I have no other friend. I have had no 
friends. All the days of my life have been 
dark and lonely. And now I am about to die, 
Carrie, I want you to see that I am buried by 
my mother yonder. I am so weary, and I 
could rest there. And then she, poor broken 
hearted mother, she might not be so lonesome 
then. Do you promise ? " 

"I do promise! 7 and the boy echoes this 
scarcely audible but determined answer. 

"Thank % you thank you! And now good 
night. I must be going, lest I draw suspicion 
on you. Good night, good night ; God bless 
you, Carrie ! " 

He presses her to his heart, hastily embraces 
her, and tearing himself away, stoops and kisses 



THE CAPTURE. 135 

the boy as he passes to the door. Drawing his 
tattered shirt closer about his shoulders, and 
turning his face as if to conceal his emotion, 
he lays his hand upon the latch to suddenly 
dart forth. 

Two dark figures pass the window, and in a 
moment more the latch-string is clutched by 
a rough, unsteady hand from without. 

" Here, here ! " cries the girl, as she springs 
back to the dingy curtain that divides off a 
portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! 
in here ! Quick I quick ! " as she draws the 
curtain aside, and lets it fall over the retreating 
fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. 
The former is drunk, and therefore dignified 
and silent. His companion is drunk, and 
therefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats 
a man s real nature nearly to the surface. 

Forty-nine lifts his hat, bows politely and 
respectfully to the children, brushes his hat 
with his elbow as he meanders across the floor 
to the peg in the wall, but cannot quite trust 
himself to speak. 

" Hullo, Carats!" cries Gar Dosson, as he 
chucks her under the chin. " Knowed I was 
coming, did n t you ? Got yourself fixed up. 



136 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

Pretty, ain t she ?" and he winks a blood-sliot 
eye toward Stumps. " And when is it going 
to be my Carats ? Pretty soon, now, eh ? " 
and he walks, or rather totters, aside. 

"Umph! I have got em again, Carrie. 
Fly around and get us something to eat. Fly 
around, Carrie, fly around! Oh, I Ve got the 
shakes again!" groans Forty-nine. 

" Poor old boy !" and she brushes the snow 
from his beard and his tattered coat. " Why, 
Forty-nine, you re shaking like a leaf." 

"He s drunk that s what s the matter with 
him." Gar Dosson growls this out between 
his teeth as he sets his gun in the corner. 

"He s not drunk! Its the ager !" retorts 
Stumps fiercely. 

Gar Dosson, glaring at the boy, steadies 
himself on his right leg, and diving deep in 
his left hand pocket, draws forth a large bill 
or poster. With both hands he manages to 
spread this out, and swaggering up to the wall 
near the window he hangs it on two pegs that 
are there to receive coats or hats. 

"Look at that!" and he crookedly points 
with his crooked fingers at the large letters, 
and reads: "One thousanl dollars (hie) dol- 



THE CAPTURE. 137 

lars reward for the capture of John Logan ! 
What do you say to that, Carats? That s 
a fine fellow to have for a lover, now, ain t it ? 
a waluable lover, now, ain t it? Worth a 
thousand dollars! Oh, don t I wish he was 
a-hanging around here now! Would n t I sell 
him, and get a thousand dollars, eh ? Yes, I 
would. I just want that thousand dollars. 
And I m the man that s going to get it, too ! 
Eh, old Blossom-nose?" Forty-nine jerks 
back his dignified head as the bully gesticu 
lates violently. 

" You will, will you? Well, may-be you 
will (hie), but if you get a, cent of that money 
(hie) for catching that man you don t enter 
that door again ; no, you don t lift that latch- 
string again as long as old Forty-nine has a 
fist to lift ! " and he thrusts his doubled hand 
hard into the boaster s face. 

" Good for you ! " cries Carrie. " Dear, 
good, brave old Forty-nine; I like you I 
love you ! " and the girl embraces him, while 
the boy flourishes his club at the back of the 
bully. 

"No, don t you hit a man when he s down, 
sah," continues Forty-nine. " That s the true 



138 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

doctrine of a gentleman the true doctrine of 
a gentleman, sah." He flourishes his hand, 
totters forward, totters back, and hesitates 
" The true doctrine of a gentleman, sah. The 
little horse in the horse-race, sah the bottom 
dog in the dog-fight, sah. The " 

And the poor old man totters back and falls 
helplessly in the great, home-made chair near 
the corner, where stands the gun. His head is 
under water. 

" The true doctrines of a gentleman," snaps 
Dosson ; and he throws out a big hand toward 
the drooping head. "Old Blossom-nose!" 
Then turning to Carrie. "The sheriff s a 
coming; he gave me that ere bill yes, he did. 
He s down to the grocery, now. He s going 
around to all the cabins, and a-swearing em in 
a book, that they don t know nothing about 
John Logan. The sheriff, he s a comin here, 
Carats, right off." 

There is a rift in the curtain, and the piti 
ful face of the fugitive peers forth. 

"The sheriff coming here!" He turns, 
feels the wall, and tries the logs with his 
hands. Not a door, not a window. Solid as 
the solid earth. 



THE CAPTURE. 139 

"Coming here? But what is he coming 
here for?" demands Carrie. 

" Coming here to find out what you know 
about John Logan. Oh, he s close after him." 

"Close after me ! " gasps Logan. The man 
feels for something to lay hand upon by which 
to defend himself. " I will not be taken alive; 
I will die here ! " He clutches at last, above 
the bed, a gun. " Saved, saved ! " He holds 
it tenderly, as if a child, or something dearly 
loved. He takes it to the light and looks at 
the lock; he blows in the barrel; he mourn 
fully shakes his head. "It is not loaded! 
Well, no matter ; I can but die," and he clubs 
the gun and prepares for mortal battle. 

"Oh, come, Carats," cries Gar Dosson, 
" let s have a little frolic before the sheriff 
comes a kiss, eh ? Come, my beauty ! " 

The rough man has all this time been steal 
ing up, as nearly as he could to the girl, and 
now throws his arm about her neck. 

" Shall I brain him be a murderer, in 
deed?" 

All the Indian is again aroused, and John 
Logan seems more terrible, and more deter 
mined to save her than to defend his own life. 



140 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"Stand back!" shouts the Girl to Dosson. 
She attempts to throw him off, but his power 
ful arm is about her neck. " Forty-nine ! 
Help!" but the old man is unconscious. John 
Logan is about to start from his corner. 

"Take that, you brute! and that!" and 
Stumps whirls his club and thunders against 
the ribs of the ruffian. 

" You devil ! you brat! what do you mean?" 

Mad with disappointment and pain, he 
throws the girl from him, and turns upon the 
boy. He clutches him by the back of the neck 
as he starts to escape, and bears him to the 
ground. 

" Look ere, do you know what I m going 
to do with you ? I m going to break your 
back across my knee! yes, I am!" and he 
glares about terribly. 

Carrie shrinks back to the side of Forty- 
nine. 

" Oh ! Help ! He will murder him ! He 
will kill him! 7 

" No, I won t murder you, you brat, but I ll 
chuck you out in that snow and let you cool 
off, while I have your sister all to myself. 
Come here ; give me your ear ! " and the 



THE CAPTUKE. 141 

great, strong ruffian seizes his ear and fairly 
carries him along by it toward the door. " Give 
me your ear!" 

"Oh, sister, sister! He will kill me!" 
howls Stumps. 

" Forty-nine! save us! We will be mur 
dered!" 

" Come, I say, give me your ear !" thunders 
the brute, as he fairly draws the boy still 
toward the door. 

"Stop that, or die!" 

The frenzied girl, failing to arouse Forty- 
nine, has caught up the gun from the corner, 
and brought the muzzle to the ruffian s breast. 
He totters back, and throws up his arms. 

" Go back there and sit down, or I will kill 
you!" 

" Give me your ear ! Come ! " roars Stumps. 
It is now his turn. " Give me your ear!" He 
reaches up and takes that red organ in his 
hand, and nearly wrenches it from the brute s 
head, as he leads him back, with many twists 
and gyrations, slowly to a low seat at the 
other side of the cabin. 

Still holding the gun in level, and in danger 
ous proximity to the man s breast, Carrie cries : 



142 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

"Now if you attempt to move you are a 
dead man!" "Give me your ear!" and 
Stumps wrenches it again, as he sits the man 
firmly on his low stool, with his red face 
making mad distortions from the pain. " John 
Logan, come ! " calls the girl. " No, don t you 
start, Gar Dosson. Don t you lift a finger; if 
you do, you die!" 

The curtains are parted, and John Logan 
starts forth. " Go, go ! There s not a moment 
to lose. The sheriff will be here; they are 
coming! Quick! Go at once! I hear I 
hear them coming!" 

The man springs to the door; the latch is 
lifted; a moment more and he will be free 
safe, at least for the night. Out into the 
friendly darkness, where man and beast, where 
pursuer and pursued, are equal, and equally 
helpless. 

There is a crushing of snow, a stamping of 
feet, and one, two, three, four, five five forms 
hurriedly pass the window. The latch is lift 
ed, and as John Logan again darts back under 
cover, the party, brushing the snow from their 
coats and grizzled beards, hastily enter the 
cabin. 



THE CAPTUKE. 143 

" Fly around, Carrie, fly around! fix your 
self up ! " The fresh gust of wind and storm 
from the door just opened, fans the glimmering 
spark of consciousness into sudden flame, and 
Forty-nine springs up, perfectly erect, perfect 
ly dignified. " Fly around, Carrie, fly around ; 
fix yourself up. The sheriff is coming fly 
around I " 

The girl drops the gun in the corner where 
she had found it, and stands before Forty-nine, 
smoothing down her apron, and letting her 
eyes fall on the floor timidly and in a childlike 
way, as if these little hands of hers had never 
known a harder task than their present em 
ployment of smoothing down her apron. 

Dosson springs up before the sheriff. He 
rubs his eyes, and he looks about as if he had 
just been startled from some bad, ugly dream. 
He wonders, indeed, if he has seen John Lo 
gan at all. Again he rubs his eyes, and then, 
looking at his knuckle, says, in a deep, guttu 
ral fashion, to himself, " Jim-jams, by gol ! I 
thought I d seed John Logan ! " 

" Ah, Forty-nine," says the sheriff, " sorry 
to disturb you, and your Miss ; and good eve 
ning to you, sir ; and good evening to you ;" 



144 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

and the honest sheriff bows to each, and brush 
es the snow from his fur cap as he speaks. 

Gar Dosson advances to his partner, Phin 
Emens, who has just entered, with that stealthy 
old tiger- step so familiar to them both, and 
laying his hand on his shoulder, they move 
aside. 

" Then it s not the jim-jams, " mutters he. 
" IVe not got em, then." 

He stops, pinches himself, looks at his 
hands, and mutters to himself. Then he lifts 
his hand to his ear. 

" Look at it again! " Phin Emens looks 
at the ear. " It s red, ain t it ? Oh, it feels 
red; it feels like fire. Then I ve not got em, 
and he is here. Hist ! Come here ! We 
want that thousand dollars all to ourselves. " 

He plucks his companion further to one 
side. They talk and gesticulate together, while 
now and then a big red rough hand is thrust 
out savagely toward the curtain. 

16 Sorry indeed to disturb you, Miss, " ob 
serves the sheriff; "but you see, I ve been 
searching and swearing of em all, and its only 
fair to serve all alike. " 

" He is not here. Upon the honor of a 



THE CAPTURE. 145 

gentleman, he is not here,/ says Forty-nine, 
emphatically. 

" He is here I" howls Dosson ; and the 
tremendous man, with the tremendous voice 
and tremendous manner, bolts up before the 
sheriff. "He is here; and I, as an honest man 
am going to earn a thousand dollars, for the 
sake of justice. I have found him found 
him all by myself; and these fellers can t 
have no hand in my find." And he holds up 
John Logan s cap, which had been knocked 
from his head in his hasty retreat to cover, 
and he rolls his red eyes toward the bed, takes 
a step in that direction, reaches a hand, lays 
hold of the curtain, and is about to dash it 
aside. 

"John Logan is there !" shouts Dosson, and 
again the curtain is clutched. 

Does he dream of what is beyond ? If he 
could only see the panting, breathless wretch 
that leans there eagerly, with lifted gun, ready 
to brain him waiting, waiting for him to come, 
even wishing that he only would come he 
would start back with terror to the other 
side. 

10 



146 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

" He is here ! I have found him ! Come ! " 

Carrie, springing forward from her posture 
of anxiety and terror, grasps a powder horn 
from over the mantel piece, jerks out the 
stopple with her teeth, and holding it over the 
fire, cries, with desperation: 

"Do it, if you dare ! This horn is full of 
powder, and if any man here dares to move 
that curtain, 111 blow you all into burning 
hell ! " The man loosens his hold on the 
curtain, and totters back. He is sober enough 
to know how terrible is the situation, and he 
knows her well enough to believe she will do 
precisely what she says she will do. " Yes, I 
will! We will all go to the next world to 
gether ; and now let us see who is best ready 
to die!" 

"Bravo!" shouts Forty-nine. 

The sheriff and his men have been moving 
back slowly from the inspired girl, standing 
there by the door of death. 

Gar Dosson at last steals around by the 
sheriff. " But he is here, Mr. Sheriff, " he says. 
" I tell you he is here in this house. There ! 
For here is his cap. I found it. I found 



THE CAPTUEE. 147 

him, and I want him and I want that thou 
sand dollars. Search ! " 

"And I tell you he is not here !" cries the 
girl, " and you shall not search, less " 

And the horn is lifted menacingly over the 
fire. " Won t you take my word ? " 

" You shall take my word!" shouts Dosson. 

" I will take your single word, Miss, against 
a thousand such men." 

And the sheriff puts on his cap, turns, and 
is about to go. 

"But he is here! The thousand dollars, 
Mr. Sheriff ! " cries Dosson. 

" Miss, officers sometimes have duties that 
are more unpleasant to them than to the par 
ties most concerned. You say he is not 
here?" 

"He is not here, Mr. Sheriff he is not 
here! "cries Carrie. 

The sheriff twists his cap on his head. "And 
you will be sworn, as the others were ? " says 
the sheriff. " So much the better ; and that 
will be quite satisfactory. Ah, here is the Bi 
ble at hand . " 

And he takes from the little shelf the tat 
tered book. The girl stands still as stone, 



148 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

with the engine of death in her hand. The 
officer bows, smiles, reaches the book with his 
left hand, lays his cap on the table, and lifts 
his right hand in the air. Her little fingers 
reach out firmly, fearlessly, and rest on the 
book. Her eyes are looking straight into his. 

" It may be my duty, Miss, to search the 
house, after what that un has said, and, Miss, 
I expect it is my duty. But, Miss, I is not 
the man to expose you before a man as might 
like to see you exposed. And then that poor 
devil that come back here, Miss, on bleeding 
feet crawling back here on his hands and 
knees, to die by his mother s grave. " 

The voice is tremulous ; the hand that is 
raised in the air comes down. Then lifting it 
again he says resolutely, " Swear, Miss ! " 

All are looking leaning with the pro- 
foundest interest. There is a dark strange face 
peering through a rift in the half-opened cur 
tain. " God bless her ! God bless her ! She 
can, and she will ! " mutters Forty-nine. 

" She can t !" cries Dosson. " She believes 
the book and, by gol, she can t !" The man 
says this over his shoulder, and in a husky 
whisper as the girl seems to pause. 



THE CAPTURE. 149 

" Hold your hand on the book, and swear as 
I shall tell you, " says the sheriff. 

She only holds more firmly to the book; her 
eyes are fixed more steadily on his. 

" Say it as I say it. I do solemnly swear " 

" I do solemnly swear " 

" That John Logan" 

" That John Logan" 

" Is not here. " 

" Is" 

"Is here ! " The curtain is thrown back, 
and the fugitive dashes into their midst. The 
book falls from the sheriff s hand, and there is 
a murmur of amazement. 

" God bless you, my girl !" And there is the 
stillness of a Sabbath morning over all. " God 
bless you ; and God will reward you for this, 
for I cannot. You have made me another 
being, Carrie. I have lost my life, but you 
have saved my soul ! " and turning cheerfully 
to the sheriff he reaches his hands. " Now, 
sir, I am ready. " 



CHAPTEE VI. 

THE ESCAPE. 

tranquil moon ! O pitying moon ! 
Put forth thy cool, protecting palms. 
And cool their eyes with cooling alms, 
Against the burning tears of noon. 

O saintly, noiseless-footed nun ! 
O sad-browed patient mother, keep 
Thy homeless children while they sleep, 

And kiss them, weeping, every one. 

AT first there was a loud demonstration 
against Logan by the mob, that always gathers 
about where a man is captured by his fellows 
the wolves that come up when the wounded 
buffalo falls. There was talk of a vigilance 
committee and of lynching. 

But when the stout, resolute sheriff led the 
man in chains down the trail through the 
deep snow, and turned him over to the officer 
in charge of a little squad of soldiers at the 
other side of the valley, no man interfered 
(150) 



THE ESCAPE. 151 

further. Indeed, Dosson and Emens were too 
anxious about the promised reward to make 
any demonstration against this man s life 
now. He was worth to them a thousand dol 
lars. 

A lawyer reading this, will smile here at the 
loose way in which the law was administered 
there in the outer edge of the world at that 
time. Here is a sheriff, with a warrant in 
his pocket, made returnable to a magistrate. 
The sheriff arrests the man on this warrant 
and takes him directly to the military author 
ities, which have been so long seeking him, 
utterly unconscious that he is doing aught but 
the proper thing. And yet, after all, it was 
the shortest and best course to take. 

I shall not forget the face of the prisoner as 
we stood beside the trail in the snow, while he 
was led past down the mouth of the canyon 
toward the other side of the valley. It was 
grand! 

Some strangers, standing in the street, spoke 
of the majesty of the man s bearing. They 
openly dared to admire his lifted face, and to 
speak with derision of his captors as the party 
passed on. This made the low element, out 



152 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

of which mobs are always created, a little bit 
timid. Possibly it was this that saved the 
prisoner. But most likely it was the resolute 
face of the honest sheriff. For, say what you 
will, there is nothing so cowardly as a mob. 
Throw what romance you please over the 
actions of the Vigilantes of California, they 
were murderers coarse, cowardly and brutal ; 
murderers, legally and morally, every one of 
them. It is to be admitted that they did 
good work at first. But their example, fol 
lowed even down to this day, has been fruit 
ful of the darkest crimes. 

When Forty-nine awoke next morning from 
his long drunken slumber, the children were 
not there. Dosson called, arrayed in his best; 
but Carrie was not to be seen. Forty-nine 
could give no account of her. This day of 
triumph for Dosson did not yield him so much 
as he had all the night before fancied. He 
was furious. 

Forty-nine, as usual, after a spree, meekly 
took up his pick, after a breakfast on a piece 
of bread and the drawings of coffee grounds 
that had been thrice boiled over, and stumbled 



THE ESCAPE. 153 

away towards his tunnel, and was soon lost in 
the deeps of the earth. 

You may be certain that this desperate 
character, just taken after so much trouble and 
cost, was securely ironed at the little military 
camp across the valley. An old log cabin was 
made a temporary prison, and soldiers strode 
up and down on the four sides of it day and 
night. 

And yet there was hardly need of such heavy 
irons. True, the soldiers outside, as they 
walked up and down at night and shifted their 
muskets from side to side, and slapped their 
shoulders with their arms and hands to keep 
from freezing, heard the chains grate and toss 
arid rattle, often and often, as if some one was 
trying to tear and loosen them. But it was 
only the man tossing his arms in delirium as 
he lay on the fir boughs in the corner. 

Dosson, after much inquiry, and many day s 
watching about Forty-nine s cabin, called and 
was admitted to see the prisoner, who by this 
time, though weak and worn to a "skeleton, 
was convalescing. The coarse and insolent 
intruder started back with dismay. There sat 
the girl he so hoped and longed to possess, talk- 



154 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

ing to him tenderly, soothing him, giving her 
life for his. 

Long and brutal would be the story of the 
agent s endeavors to tear this girl away from 
the bedside of the sufferer if such a place 
could be called a bedside. The girl would not 
leave John Logan, and the timid boy who sat 
shivering back in the corner of the cabin, 
would not leave the girl. The three were 
bound together by a chain stronger than that 
which bound the wrists of the prisoner ; aye, 
ten thousand times stronger, for man had fash 
ioned the one God the other. 

Sudden and swift arrives summer in Cali 
fornia. The trail was opened to the Reserva 
tion down the mountain, and the officer collec 
ted his few Indians together in a long, single 
line, all chained to a long heavy cable, and pre 
pared to march. About the middle of the 
chain stood John Logan, now strong enough to 
walk. At the front were placed a few misera 
ble, spiritless Indians, who had been found loaf 
ing about the miners s cabins the drunkards, 
thieves, vagabonds of their tribe, such as all 
tribes have, such as we have, citizen-reader 



THE ESCAPE. 155 

while the rear was brought up by a boy and 
girl, Carrie and Johnny, a pitiful sight ! 

Do not be surprised. When you have 
learned to know the absolute, the utterly un 
limited power and authority of an Indian 
Agent or sub- Agent, you have only to ask the 
capability for villainy he may possess in order 
to find the limit of his actions. 

Could you have seen the lofty disdain of 
this girl for her suitor at that first and every 
subsequent meeting, as she kept at the bedside 
of John Logan, you could have guessed what 
might follow. The man s love was turned to 
rage. He resolved to send her back to the 
Reservation also. It is true, the soldiers had 
learned to respect and to pity her. It is true, 
the little Lieutenant said, with a soldierly 
oath, as she was being chained, that she was 
whiter than the man who was having it done. 
Yet the soldiers, and their officer as well, had 
their orders; and a soldier s duties, as you 
know, are all bound up in one word. 

As for the wretched boy, he might have es 
caped. He was a negative sort of a being at 
best; and no one, save Logan and the girl, either 
hated him or loved him greatlv, tender and true 



156 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

as he was. They both implored him to slip be 
tween the fingers of the soldiers and not go to 
the Reservation. But he would not think of 
being separated from his sister. Poor, stunted, 
starved little thing! There were wrinkles 
about his face; his hands were black, short, 
and hard, from digging roots from the frosty 
ground. It is not probable the lad had ever 
had enough to eat since he could remember. 
And so he was a dwarf, a dwarf in body and 
in soul ; and instead of showing some spirit 
and standing up now and helping the girl, as 
he should, he leaned on her utterly, and left 
her to be the man of the two. The little spark 
of fire that had twice or thrice flashed up in 
the last few years, seemed now to die out 
entirely, and he stood there chained, looking 
back now and then over his shoulder at the 
soldiers, looking forward trying to catch a 
glance from his sister now and then, but never 
once making any murmur or complaint. 

It was a hot, sultry day, such as suddenly 
enters and takes possession of canyons in the 
Sierras, when the little party of prisoners were 
marched through the little camp at the end of 
the canyon on their way to the Reservation. 



THE ESCAPE. 

And the camp all came out to see, but the 
carnp was silent. It was riot a pleasant sight. 
A soldier with a bayonet on his loaded musket 
walking by the side of a woman with her 
hands in chains, is not an inspiring spectacle. 
With all respect for your superior judgments, 
Mr. President, Commander-in-Chief, and 
Captains of the army, I say there is a nobler 
use for the army than this. 

Let us hasten on from this subject and this 
scene. But do not imagine that the miner, the 
settler, or even the most hardened about the 
camp, felt ennobled at this sight. I tell you 
there was a murmur of indignation and dis 
gust heard all up and down the canyon. The 
newer and better element of the camp was 
furious. One man even went so far as to 
write a letter to a country paper on the sub 
ject. 

But when the editor responded in a heavy 
leader, and assured the camp of its deadly peril 
from these prowling savages, and proclaimed 
that the Indians were being taken where they 
would have good medicine, care, food and 
clothing, and be educated and taught the arts 
of agriculture, the case really did not look so 



158 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

bad ; and in less than a week the whole affair 
had been forgotten by all the camp. Aye, all, 
save old Forty-nine. 

By the express order of sub- Agent Dosson, 
the old man, who had been declared a danger 
ous character by him, was not permitted to see 
the girl from the first day he discovered that 
she still clung to Logan. But the old man 
had worked on and waited. He had kept con 
stantly sober. He would see and would save 
this girl at all hazards. 

And now, as the sorrowful remnant of a 
once great tribe was being taken, like Israel 
into captivity, he rushed forward to meet her, 
to hold her hands, to press her to his heart, and 
bid her be strong and hopeful. 

The agent saw the old man and shouted to 
the officer ; the officer called to the soldiers 
the line moved forward, the bayonets crossed 
the old man s breast as the prisoners passed on 
down the mountain, and he saw the sad, pitiful 
face no more. 

Keep the picture before you : Chained to 
gether in long lines, marched always on foot 
in single file, under the stars and stripes, offi 
cers in uniforms, clanking swords the uniform 



THE ESCAPE. 159 

of the Union, riding bravely along the lines ! 
The two men who had done so much to get 
this desperate Indian out of the way, remained 
behind to keep possession of his house and land. 
They had not even the decency to build a new 
cabin. They only broke down the door, put 
up a new one with stouter hinges and latch ; 
and the long-coveted land was theirs. 

As for old Forty-nine, all the light had left 
the mountain and the valley now. Carrie, 
whom he had cared for from the first almost, 
little Stumps, whom he had found with her, 
hardly big enough to toddle about both were 
gone. All three gone. John Logan, whom 
he had taught to read and taught a thousand 
things at his own cabin-fire in the long snowy 
winters all these gone together. It was 
as if the sun had gone down for Forty -nine 
forever. There was no sun or moon or stars, 
or any thing that shines in the mountains any 
more for him. His had been a desolate life 
all the long years he had delved away into the 
mountain at his tunnel. No man had taken 
his hand in friendship for many and many a 
year. 

The man now nailed up his cabin door an 



160 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

idle task, perhaps, for men instinctively 
avoided it, and the trail of late took a cut 
across the spur of the hill rather than pass 
by his door. But somehow the old man felt 
that he might not be back soon. And as 
men had kept away from that cabin while he 
was there, he did not feel that they should en 
ter it in his absence. 

One evening in the hot, sultry summer, old 
Forty-nine rode down from the mountain into 
the great valley, following the trail taken by 
the lines of chained captives, and set his face 
for the Reservation. 

At a risk of repetition, let us look at this 
Reservation. The government had ordered a 
United States officer, of the rank of lieutenant, 
to set apart a Reservation for the Indians on 
land not acquired and not likely to be desired 
by the white settlers, and to gather the In 
dians together there and keep them there by 
force, if force should be required. This 
young man established a Reservation on the 
border of a tule lake, shut in by a crescent of 
low sage-brush hills. The Indian camp was 
laid out on the very edge of this alkali lake. 
The crescent of sa^e-brush hills of a mile in cir- 



THE ESCAPE. 161 

cuit, reaching back and almost around the Res 
ervation, was mounted at three points by can 
non, ready to sweep the camp below. On this 
circuit of hills, healthy and pleasant enough 
the officers and soldiers had their quarters. 
Down in the damp, deadly valley, on the edge 
of the alkali lake, the newly appointed Indian 
Agent, with a tremendous appropriation to be 
expended in building houses and establishing 
the Indians in their new homes, built the vil 
lage. It was made up of two rows of low, one- 
story, one-room huts. Two big lamps hung 
in the one street; and from lamp to lamp be 
fore the doors of the little huts with earthen 
floors and turf-covered roofs, paced soldiers 
night and day. 

These houses were damp and dismal from 
the first. Soon they began to be mouldy; 
fungi and toadstools and the like began to 
grow up in the corners and out of the logs. 
Little shiny reptiles, in the long hot rainy days 
that followed, and worms and all sorts of hide 
ous vermin, began to creep and crawl through 
these dreadful dens of death, over the sick and 
dying Indians. Long slimy, unnamed, and un- 
11 



162 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

known worms crawled up out of the earth, as 
if they could not wait for the victims to die. 

The Indians were dying off by hundreds. 
They went to the officers and complained. The 
officers ordered a double guard to be set. And 
that was all. 

You marvel that these young lieutenants 
could be so imperious and cruel ? It does 
seem past belief. But pardon just one para 
graph of digression while we recall the con 
duct of a younger class only last year on the 
Hudson. To me the real question before the 
courts in the Whitaker case is not whether 
this quiet stranger, with a tinge of black man s 
blood in his veins, mutilated himself, or no. 
But the real question is, did they or did they 
not, by their determined and persistent perse 
cutions and insults, drive him in a fit of des 
peration to do this in the hope of pulling 
down ruin on the heads of all ? This seems 
probable to me, and to me is far more mon 
strous than if they had, in sudden anger, cut 
his ears, or even cut his throat; and if these 
young bloods could so treat a stranger there, 
standing at such a manifest disadvantage, what 
would they not be capable of when they are, 



THE ESCAPE. 163 

for the first time, clothed with a little brief au 
thority, away out on the savage edge of the 
world? 

The water here, as the hot season came on, 
was something dreadful. It was slimy with 
alkali. Little black worms knotted and twisted 
themselves together at the bottom of the cup, 
like bunches of witch- woven horse-hair. The 
Indians were dying of malaria. They were 
burning up with the fever. And this was the 
only water these people, who had been used to 
the fresh sweet snow-water of the Sierras, could 
have. 

What could they do ? They appealed to the 
officers. They were answered with insult: 
"You must get used to it. You must get civil 
ized." 

These dying Indians began to fight and 
quarrel among themselves. Ah, they were 
very wicked. They were quarrelsome as 
dogs; almost as quarrelsome as Christians! 

This was a small Paris in siege. It was 
Jerusalem surrounded by Titus. Down there, 
dying as they were, a savage Simon and a de 
generate John, as in Jerusalem of old, led 
their followers against each other, even across 



164 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

their dead that lay unburied in the mouldy 
death-pens and about their dark and narrow 
doors, and slew each other as did God s chosen 
people when beseiged by the son of Vespasian. 

Then the men in brass and blue turned the 
cannon loose on the howling savages, and shot 
them into silence and submission. 

John Logan, Carrie and little Stumps, about 
this time had been brought with others from the 
mountains to the Reservation. Logan insisted 
on keeping the two children at his side and 
under his protection. He was laughed at by 
agents, and sub-agents. 

He was kept chained. He was assigned to 
a strong hut with gratings across the window 
or rather the little loop-hole which let in the 
light. The guards were kept constantly at his 
door. He was entered on the books as a very 
desperate character, a barn-burner, and possible 
murderer. And so night and day he was kept 
under the constant watch of the soldiers with 
fixed bayonets. True, he was soon too weak 
to lift his manacled hands in strife. But 
nevertheless he was kept chained and doubly 
guarded in the little hut with gratings at the 
loop-hole. 



THE ESCAPE. 165 

Would lie attempt to escape ? 

There were many broken fragments of 
many broken tribes here. Tribes that had 
fought each other to the death fought as 
Germans and French have fought. And why 
not, pray ? Has not a heathen as good a right 
to fight a heathen as has a Christian to fight a 
Christian ? The only difference is, we preach 
and profess peace ; they, war. 

Logan was alone in this damp hut and 
deadly pen. He could hear the tramp of the 
soldiers; he could see the long thin silver 
beams of the moon reach through the grat 
ings, reach on and on, around and over and 
across the damp, mouldy floor, as if reaching 
out, like God s white fingers, to touch his face, 
to cool his fever, and comfort him. But he 
could see, hear nothing more. He was so 
utterly alone ! They would send an unfriend 
ly Indian in with his breakfast, foul and unfit 
for even a well man, and a tin cup of water in 
the morning. Soon after the doctor would 
call around, also. Then he would see no face 
again till evening, when more food and water 
would be brought. At last the food was 
brought only in the morning. This did not 



166 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

at all affect Logan ; for from the first the old 
pan containing his food had been taken away 
untouched. The man was certainly dying. 
The guard and garrison on the hill were 
waiting for this desperate character, whose 
capture had cost so much time and money, to 
attempt to escape. 

From the first, even in the face of the blunt 
refusal, John Logan had begged for the boy to 
be brought him. He was certain the little fel 
low was dying dying of desolation and a 
broken heart. 

About the sixth day, the man chanced to 
hear from an Indian that the boy had quite 
broken down, and, refusing all food, lay moan 
ing in his corner all the time, and all the time 
crying for John Logan or Carrie. The man 
now entreated more persistently than ever be 
fore. He promised the Doctor to eat, to get 
well, if only the boy could be brought to him 
and be permitted to spend his time there. For 
he knew from what the Doctor said that he 
must soon die if things kept on as they were. 
The weather was growing hotter and hotter; 
the water and the food, if possible, more repul 
sive than ever. Logan could no longer walk 



THE ESCAPE. 167 

across the pen in which he was confined. He 
was so weak that he could not raise his heavily 
manacled hands to his face. 

After the usual diplomacy and delay, the 
Doctor reported his condition, and also his 
earnest desire for the boy, to the Indian Agent. 

There was a consultation. Would this crafty 
and desperate Indian attempt to escape? Was 
not all this a ruse on his part ? Would not the 
United States imperil its peace and security if 
this boy and this man were to he allowed to 
gether? This mighty question oppressed the 
mind of the agent in charge for a whole day. 
Then, after the Doctor again urged the prison 
er s request for man and boy both seemed to 
be dying this man reluctantly consented. 
Would Logan now escape after all? Could he 
ever get through these iron bars and past the 
four soldiers pacing up and down outside? 
Would he escape from the Reservation at last ? 

And now, at the close of the hottest and most 
dreadful day they had endured, an old Indian 
woman, bent almost double, came shuffling in 
by permission of the guard, and laid something 
on a pile of rushes and willows in a corner of 
the pen across from where John Logan lay. 



168 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

The man heard a noise as of some one 
breathing heavily, and attempted to rise. He 
could hardly move his head. But in trying 
to support himself to a sitting posture, he 
moved his hands, and so rattled his manacles. 
This frightened the superstitious old woman, 
and she ran away. She had laid a little skel 
eton on the rushes in the corner. 

Logan with great effort managed to sit up 
and look across into the corner that was now 
being slowly illuminated by a beam of bright, 
white moonlight, that stole down the wall 
toward the little heap lying there, like some 
holy, white-hooded and noiseless- footed nun. 
At last he saw the face. It was that of little 
Stumps. The man sank back where he lay, 
The sight was so pitiful, so dreadful to see, 
that he forgot his own misery and was all in 
tears for the little fellow who lay dying before 
him. He forgot his own fearful condition at 
the sight, and again attempted to rise and 
reach the little heap that lay moaning in the 
corner. It was impossible ; he could not rise. 
And how fared Carrie all this time ? Little 
better than the others. She was no longer 
beautiful. And so she was left, along with 



THE ESCAPE. 169 

a score or more of other dying and desperate 
creatures, in another part of the Reservation. 
She was not permitted to see the boy. Least 
of all was she permitted to see, or even hear 
from, John Logan. Day by day she drooped 
and sank slowly but surely down toward the 
grave. 

But she did not fear death. She had faced 
it in all forms before. And even now death 
walked the place night and day, and she was 
not afraid. She lay down at night with death. 
She knew no fear at all. She constantly asked 
for and wanted to see the helpless little boy, 
in the hope that she might help or cheer him. 
But no one listened to anything she had to say. 
Once, after a very hot and horrible day, two 
of her companions in captivity were found to 
be dead. The guard who paced up and down 
between the huts was told of it. But he said it 
was too late to have them carted away that 
night. And so this girl lay there all night by 
the side of the dead, and was not afraid. Nay, 
she even wished that she too, when the cart 
came in the morning, might be found silent 
and at peace. And then she thought of those 
whom she loved, and reproached herself for 



170 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

being so selfish as to want to die when she still 
might be of use to them. 

Let us escape from these dreadful scenes 
as soon as possible. They are like a night 
mare to me. 

And yet the mind turns back constantly to 
John Logan lying there; the little heap of 
bones in the corner ; the pure white moonlight 
creeping softly down the wall, as if to look 
into the little fellow s eyes, yet as if half afraid 
of wakening him. 

Could Logan escape? Chains, double 
guards, death all these at his door holding 
him back, waiting to take him if he ever 
passed out at that door. Mould on the floor, 
mould on the walls, mould on the very 
blankets. The man was burning to death with 
the fever; the boy, too, lying over there. The 
boy moaned now and then. Once Logan 
heard him cry for water. That warm, slimy, 
wormy water ! O, for one, just one draught of 
cool, sweet water from the mountains their 
dearly loved native mountains and die ! 

The moon rose higher still, round and white 
and large; and at last, wheeling over the 
camp of death, seemed to pause in pity and 



THE ESCAPE. 171 

look full in upon those two dying captives. It 
seemed to soothe them both. 

The little boy saw the moonbeam on the 
wall, and was pacified. It looked like the face 
of an old friend. It brought back the old 
time; the life, the woods, the water above 
all, the cool sweet waters of the mountains. He 
seemed to know where he was. He lay still a 
long time, and then felt stronger. He called 
to John Logan. No answer. Then the feeble, 
piping little voice lifted up and called as loud 
as it could. No answer still. The boy 
crawled from off the little pallet and tried to 
rise. He sank down on the damp floor, and 
then tried to crawl to John Logan. He tried 
to call again, as he began to slowly crawl to 
wards the other corner. But the poor little 
voice was no louder than a whisper. Very 
weak and very wild, and almost quite delirious, 
the boy kept on as best he could. He at last 
touched the blankets, the breast, and he drew 
himself up just as the moon looked down on 
the pale upturned face. Then, with a moan, 
a wild, pitiful cry, the little fellow fell back on 
the damp mouldy floor. 

John Logan was dead ! Despite the chains, 



172 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

the bars at the window, the double guard at 
the door, the man had escaped at last ! 

The pitying moon did not hasten to go. It 
lingered there, reached down along the damp, 
mouldy floor to a little form of skin and bone; 
and then, as if this moon-beam were the Sav 
ior s mantle spreading out to cover the white 
and stainless soul, it covered the pinched and 
pitiful little face. For the boy, too, lay dead. 

Here was the end of two lives that had 
known only the long dark shadows, only the 
deep solitude and solemnity of the forest. 
Like tall weeds that sometimes shoot up in 
dark and unfrequented places, and that put 
forth strange, sweet flowers, these two lives 
had sprung up there, put forth after their 
fashion the best that is in man, and then per 
ished in darkness, unnamed, unknown. 

Who were they ? John Logan, it is now 
whispered, was the son of an officer made fa 
mous in the war annals of the world. The 
officer had been stationed here in early 
manhood, gave his heart as she believed to a 
daughter of a brave and powerful chief, whose 
lands lay near where he was stationed for a 
summer, and then ? The old, old tale of be- 



THE ESCAPE. 173 

trayal and desertion. The woman was dis 
graced before her people. And so when they 
retreated before the encroachments of the 
whites, she, being despised and cast off by her 
people, remained behind waiting the promised 
return of her lover. He ? He did not even 
acknowledge his child. This General, who 
had taken the lives of a thousand men, had 
not the moral courage to reach out a hand to 
this one little waif which he had called into 
existence. 

Do you know, there never was a dog drowned 
in the pound so base and low that he would not 
fight ? Yet this brute-valor is largely admired, 
even to this day, by Christian people. This 
man could kill men, could risk his own life, 
but he could not give this innocent child his 
name. 

And so it was, the boy, after he had learned 
to read, by the help of Forty-nine, and an oc 
casional missionary who sometimes preached to 
the miners, and spent the pleasant summer 
months in the mountains this boy, I say, who 
at last had heard all the story of his father s 
weakness and wickedness from Forty-nine s lips 
disdained to use his name, but chose one fa- 



174 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

mous in the annals of the Indians. And this 
brief sketch is about all there is to tell of the 
young man who lay dead in chains, in the 
prison-pen of the Keservation. 

" Civilization kills the Indian," said the 
Doctor that morning in his daily round, after 
he had examined the dead bodies. 

" He does not look so desperate, after all," 
said an officer, as he held his nose with his 
thumb and finger, and leaned forward to look 
at the dead Indian, while his other hand held 
his sword gracefully at his side. And then 
this officer, after making certain that this des 
perate character was quite dead, drew forth his 
cigar-case, struck a light, and climbing upon 
his horse, galloped back to his quarters on the 
hill. 

The Doctor, now left alone, stooped and put 
back the long silken hair from the thin baby- 
face of the boy, as the body was brought out 
and being carried to the cart made to receive 
the dead, and remarked that it was not at all 
like that of the other Indians. Another 
young officer came by as the Doctor did this, 
and his attention was called to the fact. The 
officer tapped his sword-hilt a little, looked 



THE ESCAPE. 175 

curiously at the pitiful, pinched little face, and 
then ordering the soldiers to move on with 
their burden, he turned to the Doctor and re 
marked, as the two went back together to 
their quarters on the hill, that u no doubt it 
was the effect of the few days of civilization 
on the Reservation that had made the boy so 
white ; pity he had died so soon ; a year on the 
Reservation, and he would have been quite 
white. " 

Unlike other parts of the Union, here the 
races are much mixed. Creoles, Kanakas, 
Mexicans, Malays, whites, and blacks, have 
intermixed with the natives, till the color line 
is not clearly drawn. And in one case at least 
some orphan children of white parentage were 
sent to the Reservation by parties who wanted 
their property. Though I do not know that 
the fact of white children being found on a 
Reservation makes the sufferings of the, sav 
ages less or their wrongs more outrageous. I 
only mention it as a frozen fact. 

Carrie did not know of the desolation which 
death had made in her life, till old Forty-nine, 
who arrived too late to attend the burial of his 
dead, told her. She did not weep. She did 



176 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

not even answer. She only turned her face 
to the wall as she lay in her wretched bed, 
burning up with the fever, but made no sign. 
There was nothing more for her to bear. She 
had felt all that human nature can feel. She 
was dull, dazed, indifferent, now to all that 
might occur. 

To turn back for the space of a paragraph, 
I am bound to admit that these dying Indians 
often behaved very foolishly, and, in their su 
perstitions brought much of the fatality upon 
themselves. For example, they had a hor 
ror of the white man s remedies, and refused 
to take the medicines administered to them. 
Brought down from the cool, fresh mountains, 
where they lived under the trees in the purest 
air and in the most beautiful places, they at 
once fell ready victims to malarial fevers. 
The white man, by a liberal use of quinine 
and whisky, as well as by careful diet, lived 
very well at the Keservation, and suffered but 
little, yet had he been forced to live in a pen, 
crowded together like pigs in a sty, with the 
bad air, on the damp, mouldy ground, he had 
died too, as fast perhaps as the Indian died. 

The old man could do but little for the 



THE ESCAPE. 177 

dying girl. He was in bad odor with the 
officers ; they treated him with as little con 
sideration almost as if he too had been a 
savage. But he was constant at her side ; he 
brought a lemon which he had begged, on his 
knees, as it were, and tried to make her a cool 
drink of the slimy, wormy water. But the 
girl could not drink it. She turned her face 
once more to the wall, and this time, it seemed, 
to die. 

One morning, before the sun rose, she re 
covered her wandering mind and called old 
Forty-nine to her side. She was surely dy 
ing ; but her mind was clear, and she under 
stood perfectly all she said or did. Her dark 
eyes were sunken deep in their places, and 
her long, sun-browned hands were only skin 
and bone. They fell down across her heaving 
little breast, as if they were the hands of a 
skeleton. Little wonder that her persecutors 
had turned away with horror, perhaps with fear, 
from those deep, hollow eyes, and the pitiful 
emaciated frame, that could no longer lift itself 
where it lay. 

The old man fell down on his knees beside 
12 



178 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

her and reached his face across to hers. With 
greateffort she lifted her two naked long, arms, 
and wound them about the old man s neck. 
He seemed to know that death was near, as he 
reached his face over hers. Over his cheeks 
and down his long white beard the tears ran 
like rain and fell on her face and breast. 

"Forty-nine, father! Let me call you 
father; may I? I never had any father but 
you," said the girl feebly, as the tears fell fast 
on her face. 

" Yes, yes, call me father. Call me father, 
Carrie, my Carrie; my poor, dear, dear little 
Carrie, do call me father, for of all the world 
I have only you to love and live for," sobbed 
the old man as if his heart would break. 

" Well, then, father, when I die take me 
back, take me back to the mountains. I want 
to hear the water the cool, sweet, clear water, 
where I lie ; and the wind in the trees the 
cool, pure wind in the trees, father. Andyou 
know the three trees just above the old cabin 
on the hill by the water-fall? Bury me, 
bury me there. Yes, there, where I can hear 
the cool water all the time, and the wind in 
the trees. And and won t you please cut 



THE ESCAPE. 179 

my name on the tree by the water? My name, 
Carrie -just Carrie, that s all. I have no 
other name -just Carrie. Will you ? Will 
you do this for me?" 

" As there is a God as I live, I will! " and 
the old man lifted his face as he bared his 
head, and looked to ward -heaven. 

The girl s mind wandered now. She spoke 
incoherently for a few moments, and then was 
silent. Her form was convulsed, her breast 
heaved just a little, her helpless hands reached 
about the old man s neck as if they would hold 
him from passing from her presence; they fell 
away, and then all was still. It was now gray 
dawn. 

This man s heart was bursting with rage 
and a savage sorrow. He was now stung with 
a sense of awful injustice. His heart was 
swelling with indignation. He took up the 
form before him ; up in his arms, as if it had 
been that of an infant. He threw his hand 
kerchief across the face as he passed out, stoop 
ing low through the dark and narrow door 
way, and strode in great, long and hurried 
steps down the street and over toward the 



180 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

hills beyond, where his horse was tethered in 
the long, brown grass. 

As the old man passed the post on .the hill, 
where the officers slept under the protection of 
loaded cannon, the guard stopped him with his 
bayonet. 

" Halt! Where are you going? And what 
have you there ? Come, where are you going ? 

The old man threw back the handkerchief 
as the guard approached, and the new sunlight 
fell on the girl s face. 

" I am going to bury my dead." 

The guard started back. He almost dropped 
his gun as he saw that face ; then, recovering 
himself, he bared his head, bowed his face rev 
erently, and motioned the old man on. 

Forty-nine reached his horse in the brown 
grass, laid his burden down, threw on the 
saddle, drew the girth with sudden strength 
and energy, as if for a long and desperate ride. 
Then resuming his load, tenderly, as if it were 
a sleeping infant, he vaulted into the saddle 
and dashed away for the Sierras, that lay before 
him, and lifted like a city of snowy temples, 
reared to the worship of the Eternal. 

It was a desperate ride for life. The girl s 



THE ESCAPE. 181 

long soft black hair was in the wind. The 
air was purer, sweeter here ; there was a sense 
of liberty, of life, in this ride, right in the face 
of the rising sun as it streamed down over the 
snowy summits of the Sierras. Every plunge 
of the strong swift, mustang, brought them 
nearer to home, to hope, to life. The horse 
seemed to know that now was his day of 
mighty enterprise. Perhaps he was glad to 
get away and up and out of that awful valley 
of death ; for he forged ahead as horse never 
plunged before, with his strange double bur 
then, that had frightened many a better trained 
mustang than he. 

At last they began to climb the chappa- 
ral hills. Then they touched the hills of 
pine, and the breath of balsam had a sense 
of health and healing in it that only the in 
valid who is dying for his mountain home can 
appreciate. 

The horse was in a foam ; the day was hot ; 
the old man was fainting in the saddle. 

Water ! Water at last ! Down a steep, 
mossy crag, hung with brier and blossom, 
came tumbling, with loud laughter like merry 
girls at play, a little mountain stream. Cool 



182 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

as the snow, sweet as the blossom, it fell 
foaming in its pebbly bed at the base of the 
crag, under the deep, cool shadows of the 
pines. 

The old man threw himself from his horse, 
and beast and man drank together as he held 
the girl in his arms, where the spray dashed 
down like a holy baptismal from the very 
hand of God upon her hair and face. The 
hands clutched, the breast heaved a little, the 
lips moved as if to drink in the cool sweet 
water. Her eyes feebly opened. And then 
the old man bore her back under the pines, 
and laid her on the soft bed of dry sweet-smell 
ing pine-quills. 

Then clasping his hands above her, as he 
bent his face to hers, he uttered his first 
prayer the first for many and many a weary 
year. It was a prayer of thanksgiving, of 
gratitude. The girl would live; and he 
would now have something to live for to 
love. 

It had been a strange weird sight, that old 
man, his long hair in the wind, his strong 
horse plunging madly ahead, all white with 
foam, climbing the Sierras as the sun climbed 



THE ESCAPE. 188 

up. The girl lay in his arms before him, lier 
long dark hair all down over the horse s neck, 
tangled in the horse s mane, catching in the 
brush and the wild vines and leaves that 
hung over the trail as they flew past. 

And oftentime back over his shoulder the 
old man threw his long white beard and 
looked back. He felt, he knew, that he was 
pursued. He fancied he could all the time 
hear the sound of horses feet. 

Perhaps if his eyes had been gifted with the 
vision of the prophets of old, he would indeed 
have seen the pursuer. That pursuer was also 
an old man, and not much unlike himself; an 
old man with a scythe death. Death follow 
ing fast from the hot valley of pestilence, where 
he, death, kept, if possible, closer watch than 
the Agents, that no Indian ever returned to his 
native mountains. But death gave up the 
pursuit, and turned back from the moment 
the baptismal fountain touched the girl s 
fevered forehead. At last the old man who 
held her in his arms, rose up, rode on and 
down to his cabin in the twilight, all secure 
from pursuit of Agents, death, or any one. The 



184 SHADOWS OF SHASTA. 

girl, quite conscious, opened her eyes and 
looked around on the tall, nodding pine trees, 
that stood in long, dusky lines, as if drawn up 
to welcome her return to the heart of the 
Sierras. 















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